Microbes persist: Systems biology of the soil microbiome
EMSL Project ID
60406
Abstract
Microorganisms play key roles in soil carbon turnover and stabilization of persistent organic matter via their metabolic activities, cellular biochemistry, and extracellular products. Microbial residues are the primary ingredients in soil organic matter (SOM), a pool critical to Earth’s soil health and climate. We hypothesize that microbial cellular chemistry, functional potential, and ecophysiology fundamentally shape soil carbon persistence, and we will characterize this via stable isotope probing (SIP) of genome-resolved metagenomes. We focus on soil moisture as a “master controller” of microbial activity and mortality, since altered precipitation regimes are predicted across the temperate United States. We will perform omics and SOM analyses to study interplay between minerals, microbial communities, plants and natural organic carbon in soils. For latter, we will assess LC-MS/MS workflows to corroborate molecular formula assignments and provide additional structural characterization of unknowns into specific classes of compounds as the next steps to understanding the molecular structures of carbon that persist in various environments.
Project Details
Start Date
2022-03-17
End Date
N/A
Status
Active
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members