Vital signs in the low energy microbial world: linking physiology to ecosystem function
Presenter
Dr.
Jacqueline
Goordial
Bigelow
Laboratory
for
Ocean
Sciences
East
Boothbay,
Maine
Abstract
Microorganisms are the most diverse and abundant lifeforms on Earth, but less than 1% have been cultured in the laboratory for study. Thus, our knowledge of the metabolic potential of the vast majority of microorganisms is based primarily on genomic and metagenomic sequencing. Compounding these unknowns is evidence that bacteria commonly exist in prolonged states of low metabolic activity or non-growth states in environmental settings. This gap in our knowledge necessitates uniting physiology and molecular microbiology to understand the roles that bacterial communities play in biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem function. In this presentation, I will focus on new insights into the activity and non-growth states of the microbial communities inhabiting extreme, low biomass and resource-scarce environments including unique permafrost soils from the Antarctic Dry Valleys, and in oceanic crust and sediments from the mid-Atlantic ridge. Using novel single cell genomic approaches, I explore microbial metabolic activity and functional potential in microorganisms at the limits of detection. These microbial dominated environments are model systems to examine the abiotic controls on microbial growth, dormancy and death, and how these physiological states relate to evolution and biogeochemical cycling in the environment on Earth and potentially beyond.