CAREER: Moving beyond descriptive genomic studies - Applying theoretical ecology principles to predictably intensify anaerobic co-digestion processes

微生物群落在工程和自然系统中共同处理营养物质和有机物质。仅仅根据已知存在的物种来预测复杂的微生物群落将如何表现是困难的，因为大多数流行的微生物经常随着时间的推移和从一个地方到另一个地方而变化，即使群落行为保持不变。这项工作将制定一个定量标准来描述微生物群落的状态，以评估生物反应器系统的性能。研究小组还将创作以环境工程为重点的漫画，作为推广工作的一部分。这些漫画将针对未被充分代表的青少年和青少年，以提高科学素养和扩大未来参与环境工程。本研究的总体研究目标是应用理论生态学原理来量化驱动微生物群落结构，功能和流动性的基本过程。在这项工作中感兴趣的系统将是厌氧消化器在稳定，扰乱和恢复期间。这项研究将测试的假设，战略变化的生物处理系统的操作参数可以塑造他们的微生物群落到可预测的组合物，实现所需的功能改善。三个研究目标将被用来测试这一假设。首先，在非共消化和共消化条件下运行的全规模厌氧生物反应器中发生的动态微生物组结构和单个微生物相互作用将利用在两年期间每两个月从全规模设施收集的序列数据进行量化。将建立正常运行范围基准（NORB），以确定在稳定运行条件下预期的自然变化。第二，NORB的操作参数，包括有机负荷率，挥发性固体破坏，沼气和甲烷生产率，阻力和弹性，这些相同的设施将被量化。先进的统计工具将用于确定哪些操作参数对第一个研究目标中观察到的微生物组结构影响最大。最后，将使用实验室规模的厌氧消化器来确定使用操作参数的变化来塑造微生物组结构以最大化沼气生产率，阻力和/或弹性的有效性。这项工作的结果解决了这些系统中产生的大量序列数据的最大弱点;即它在本质上主要是描述性的，对于设计系统和预测未来性能的实用性有限。这项工作的教育和推广阶段将确定使用连续漫画的有效性，以增加对K中复杂环境问题的理解和保留，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.

Microbial communities work together to process nutrients and organic matter in engineered and natural systems. It is difficult to predict how complex microbial communities will behave based on only what species are known to be present, because most prevalent microbes often change over time and from location to location, even as the community behavior stays the same. This work will develop a quantitative standard to describe the state of the microbial community for assessing bioreactor system performance. The research team will also create environmental engineering focused cartoons as part of an outreach effort. The cartoons will target underrepresented preteens and teens to increase scientific literacy and expand future participation in environmental engineering.The overall research objective of this research is to apply the theoretical ecology principles to quantify the fundamental processes that drive microbial community architecture, functionality, and fluidity. The system of interest in this work will be anaerobic digesters during periods of stability, upset, and recovery. This research will test the hypothesis that strategic changes to the operational parameters of biotreatment systems can shape their microbial communities into predictable compositions that achieve the desired functional improvement. Three research objectives will be used to test this hypothesis. First, the dynamic microbiome structures and individual microbial interactions that occur in full-scale anaerobic bioreactors operated under non-co-digesting and co-digesting conditions will be quantified utilizing sequence data collected from full-scale facilities bi-monthly over a two-year period. Normal operational range benchmarks (NORBs) will be created to identify the natural variability that would be expected under stable operating conditions. Second, the NORBs for operational parameters including organic loading rates, volatile solids destruction, biogas and methane productivity, resistance, and resiliency for these same facilities will be quantified. Advanced statistical tools will be used to identify which operational parameters have the largest impact on microbiome structures observed in the first research objective. Finally, laboratory-scale anaerobic digesters will be used to determine the effectiveness of using changes in operational parameters to shape the microbiome structure for maximizing biogas productivity, resistance, and/or resiliency. The results of this work address the greatest weaknesses of the tremendous amount of sequence data generated in these systems; namely that it is largely descriptive in nature with limited utility for designing systems and predicting future performance. The educational and outreach phase of this work will identify the effectiveness of using sequential cartoons to increase the comprehension and retention of complex environmental issues in K-12 students with the goal of lowering barriers to participation in the field of environmental engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.