Projects

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…

Nitrogen fixation in Populus: Identification and localization of the key diazotrophs in planta

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Sharon Doty

Project type

FICUS Research

Poplar (Populus) trees are an early successional pioneer plant species able to colonize nutrient-limited, cobble-dominated riparian zones. Native poplar has a diverse microbiota including strains…

Fluorescence-based cell sorting and targeted proteomic analysis of active methane-oxidizing syntrophic consortia from environmental samples

Lead Institution

California Institute of Technology

Principal Investigator

Victoria Orphan

Project type

FICUS Research

Determining the links between phylogenetically identified microorganisms with their metabolic activity and function in complex natural ecosystems has been a long-standing challenge in microbial…

Building the phage-host-environment interaction data to scale from genes-to-ecosystems: Towards predictive modeling of wild microbial and viral community dynamics

Lead Institution

University of Michigan

Principal Investigator

Melissa Duhaime

Project type

FICUS Research

Ocean microbes and viruses are now at the forefront of Earth System studies. The enormous numbers of ocean viruses (typically >10^5 ml-1, usually ten for every microbial cell) are driving…

Specialized Ribosomes: A New Frontier in Gene Regulation

Lead Institution

Texas A&M University

Principal Investigator

Deborah Bell-Pedersen

Project type

FICUS Research

A longstanding view in molecular biology is that all the ribosomes in a cell function identically. Our recent preliminary data, and those of others, challenge this dogma, and instead support the…

A Rhizosphere-Scale Investigation of the Relationship Between Plant Productivity and Methane Emissions from Wetlands

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Rebecca Neumann

Project type

FICUS Research

The proposed project will advance understanding of the response of methane production and methane oxidation to changes in plant productivity so that modeled representations of these processes and…

Integrated Omics Analyses of a Populus Pedigree for Crop Improvement

Lead Institution

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Chongle Pan

Project type

FICUS Research

Populus is a DOE flagship plant for biofuel biomass production. Improving Populus as a feedstock crop is a major focus of DOE Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) and many academic laboratories. Here,…

Molecular mechanisms underlying changes in the temperature sensitive respiration response of forest soils to long-term experimental warming

Lead Institution

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Principal Investigator

Jeffrey Blanchard

Project type

FICUS Research

A more complete understanding of how global warming will affect carbon-cycle feedbacks to the climate system is central to model projections of future climate. Simulation experiments with fully…

Deciphering controls on plant decomposition in Arctic ecosystems: Identifying unknown microbial condensed tannin degradation pathways

Lead Institution

Colorado State University

Principal Investigator

Kelly Wrighton

Project type

FICUS Research

Climate change in the Arctic is progressing rapidly, and much of the focus, thus far, has been on permafrost thaw and the rapid mineralization of soil organic carbon (C) by soil microorganisms…

The impacts of nitrogen availability and seasonal dynamics on plant-microbial interactions affecting C and N cycling in coniferous forest soils

Lead Institution

Institute of Microbiology of the CAS

Principal Investigator

Petr Baldrian

Project type

FICUS Research

Coniferous forests are widely distributed in temperate and boreal biomes and the fact that they efficiently store large stocks of carbon makes them globally important. Decomposer and mycorrhizal…

Global warming induced salinity shifts: metabolic responses by algal-bacterial consortia

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Rose Ann Cattolico

Project type

FICUS Research

The reality of global warming predicts that the survival of many organisms will be compromised due to rapid environmental changes of the ecosystems in which they live. Aquatic ecosystems are…

The role of priming effects on the conversion of blue carbon to CO2 in the coastal zone

Lead Institution

University of Florida

Principal Investigator

Thomas Bianchi

Project type

FICUS Research

"Blue carbon," or organic carbon (OC) derived from and stored in coastal and marine environments, is recognized as an important OC sink within the global carbon cycle, particularly in…

Systems analysis of grass secondary cell wall development and regulation for biofuel production

Lead Institution

Washington State University

Principal Investigator

Laura Bartley

Project type

FICUS Research

The objective of this proposal is to identify the proteins, phosphopeptides, transcripts, and metabolic signatures that mediate secondary cell wall (SCW) development in grasses. Grass cell walls are…

Combined 'omics approaches for the study of ectomycorrhizal symbiosis between Suillus and Pinaceae, with emphasis on their role in nutrient cycling

Lead Institution

University of Florida

Principal Investigator

Hui-ling Liao

Project type

FICUS Research

This study will explore the genetics of obligately symbiotic interactions between conifers (Pinaceae) and their host-specific ectomycorrhizal fungi in the mushroom genus Suillus, and their effects on…