Projects

Histone Methylomics and the Chromatin Landscape of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Lead Institution

Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Principal Investigator

James Umen

Project type

FICUS Research

Our goal is to identify and categorize the SET domain methyltransferase enzymes in the model unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Chlamydomonas) that are responsible for histone…

Deploying Advanced Molecular & Cell Free Expression Tools to Accelerate Characterization of Fungal Cellulosomes

Lead Institution

University of California, Santa Barbara

Principal Investigator

Michelle O'Malley

Project type

FICUS Research

This proposal seeks use of EMSL and JGI resources to determine the structure of unique, multi-enzyme cellulosomes made by anaerobic gut fungi. Cellulosomes enable synergistic breakdown of plant…

Linking soil microbial stress metabolism to watershed biogeochemistry under climate change across seasons

Lead Institution

Boston University

Principal Investigator

Jennifer Bhatnagar

Project type

FICUS Research

Air temperatures are rising, while the winter snowpack is shrinking and soil freeze/thaw events are increasing in high latitude ecosystems. The severe thermal perturbations from warming during the…

Elucidating the impacts of viruses on soil organic carbon and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural peat soils

Lead Institution

University of Amsterdam

Principal Investigator

Paula Dalcin Martins

Project type

FICUS Research

Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth. Despite their abundance, soil viruses are poorly characterized and viral impacts on the biogeochemical cycles in soils are vastly…

Parched: quantifying microbial ecophysiology and the fate of plant carbon during soil dry down

Lead Institution

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Steve Blazewicz

Project type

FICUS Research

In seasonally dry grasslands, soil microbes bloom during the plant growing season, survive extreme desiccation (water potential < -35 MPa) during long dry periods, and then rapidly mineralize soil…

Moisture and seasonal drivers of Inter-Kingdom metabolic interaction in a marginal soil rhizosphere

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

William Nelson

Project type

FICUS Research

Soil is a complex environment with numerous competing and cooperating populations contributing to overall ecosystem services. Plants provide most of the fresh organic carbon inputs through growth and…

Metabolic exchange between Spartina alterniflora and sulfur chemosymbionts of the plant's root microbiome

Lead Institution

Georgia Institute of Technology

Principal Investigator

Joel Kostka

Project type

FICUS Research

Vegetated coastal ecosystems are among the most intense carbon sinks in the biosphere, storing large amounts of carbon in their soils. Despite the fact that the root zone of coastal wetland plants…

Engineering morphology and secretion to enhance the productivity of fungal fermentations

Lead Institution

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Principal Investigator

Steven Harris

Project type

FICUS Research

Enzymes such as cellulases and amylases play an essential role in the production of biofuels through their ability to convert biomass into fermentable sugars. The primary sources of these enzymes are…

Identification and Regulation of Cellulases within Novel Anaerobic Gut Fungi

Lead Institution

University of California, Santa Barbara

Principal Investigator

Michelle O'Malley

Project type

FICUS Research

Biofuels derived from plant biomass (lignocellulose) are attractive alternatives to petroleum-based products, as they avoid many of the economic and environmental problems that plague traditional…

Functional genomics of moss-cyanobacteria interactions in boreal forest ecosystems

Lead Institution

J. Craig Venter Institute

Principal Investigator

Philip Weyman

Project type

FICUS Research

Boreal forests are important ecosystems involved in global carbon cycling. The nitrogen cycling in these ecosystems is largely determined by feather moss-associated cyanobacteria that fix the…

Development of novel approaches to target microbial drivers of C cycling in soil aggregates

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Kirsten Hofmockel

Project type

FICUS Research

We propose to develop approaches that target metabolically active microorganisms and functions that drive carbon cycling in soils from bioenergy cropping systems. Albeit critically important, soil…

Mapping soil carbon from cradle to grave: using comparative transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolite analysis to identify the microbial blueprint for root-enhanced decomposition of organic matter.

Lead Institution

University of California, Berkeley

Principal Investigator

Mary Firestone

Project type

FICUS Research

In this JGI-EMSL project, we will investigate how living roots impact the functional capacity of the detritosphere (litter and surrounding soil) microbiome that is actively mediating decomposition…

Organelles promoting high level terpenoid biosynthesis in filamentous fungi.

Lead Institution

United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service Cereal Disease Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Harold Kistler

Project type

FICUS Research

Terpenoid compounds are a promising source of renewable biofuels that have many favorable characteristics such as high energy content and compatibility with existing energy-use technologies. While…

FECB: A Functional Encyclopedia of Cyanobacteria - Building the knowledge framework for an enhanced understanding of carbon and nitrogen cycling

Lead Institution

University of California, Davis

Principal Investigator

Matthias Hess

Project type

FICUS Research

There has been a great interest by the Department of Energy (DOE) to increase the phylogenetic coverage of genome sequences from across the phyla archaea and bacteria – including cyanobacteria. The…

Genome-enabled Investigations of the Role of Secreted Proteins and Reactive Metabolites in Carbon Degradation by Pure and Mixed Ascomycete Fungal Communities

Lead Institution

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Principal Investigator

Colleen Hansel

Project type

FICUS Research

The Eumycete fungi (primarily Basidiomycota and Ascomycota) are key organisms in the degradation of wood, plant and animal material. While ascomycetes are less capable of rapid wood decay than…

Quantifying Differential Expression and Identifying Bottlenecks in Methanogenic Pathways

Lead Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Principal Investigator

Zaida Luthey-Schulten

Project type

FICUS Research

To facilitate our BER funded research to develop models of acetotrophic methanogenic microbes that predictively capture changes in cell behavior with single cell resolution due to dynamic…

Dissecting intraspecies diversity in fungal wood decay

Lead Institution

Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute

Principal Investigator

Ronald de Vries

Project type

FICUS Research

Basidiomycete fungi are essential for degradation of wood in natural eco-systems and therefore a crucial part of the global carbon cycle. Genomic and post-genomic studies into several basidiomycete…

Integrated biogeochemical modeling of microbial consortia mediating anaerobic oxidation of methane in dynamic methane hydrate-bearing sediments

Lead Institution

Oregon State University

Principal Investigator

Frederick Colwell

Project type

FICUS Research

Methane hydrate-bearing marine continental margin sediments are estimated to contain up to 2000 Pg carbon as methane, a potent greenhouse gas. This methane is released upon hydrate dissociation,…

Systems-level insights into carbon transformations in thawing permafrost by parallel high-resolution organic matter and microbial community characterizations

Lead Institution

The Ohio State University

Principal Investigator

Virginia Rich

Project type

FICUS Research

A fundamental challenge of modern environmental science is to understand how earth systems will respond to climate change. A parallel challenge in biology is to understand how information encoded in…

Mapping the metabolism of nutrient and carbon exchange in the plant-microbe symbiosis

Lead Institution

West Virginia University

Principal Investigator

Jonathan Cumming

Project type

FICUS Research

This research will identify the molecular responses that enable circumvention of phosphorus (P) starvation response in symbiotic plant-microbe communities. Using JGI/EMSL capabilities to assess…