Predictive Temporal Analysis of Functional Microbiomes in UK's Anerobic Digestion Reactors

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The scientific and practical importance of microbial communities (MCs) cannot be overstated. They underpin the biogeochemical cycles of the earth's soil, oceans, and the atmosphere, and provide eco-functions to plants, animals, and humans through the gut and skin. Despite the importance of MCs, our understanding of the structure-function relation and dynamics in these complex systems is highly limited. Contributing to this limitation is the difficulty of defining a clear function of natural MCs and conducting controlled, temporal experiments. In contrast, biotechnological applications of MCs provide excellent model systems that have clear functional parameters and offer controlled environments.Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a key green-energy technology that makes use of complex MCs for the conversion of organic waste into methane. At the time of writing, there are more than 250 AD reactors with a total capacity of approx. 240,000 kWe in the UK that are fed with organic wastes and run in a controlled manner with regular recording of functional parameters. Here, we will develop the experimental and bioinformatics resources for collecting, sharing, and analyzing high- resolution temporal metagenomics data from MCs of AD reactors. The proposed approach will achieve the most comprehensive, highest-resolution temporal data on MCs available to date.This data, combined with the developed analysis tools will greatly increase our understanding of the structure-function relation in AD microbiomes. Equally importantly, our approach holds the potential to transform the robustness and productivity of the AD technology in the UK. The same resources and insights will also be transferable to other MCs, such as the soils utilised in precision- farming, or guts of farming animals. We, thus, expect this demonstrative project to result in a self- sustaining, online knowledge base that will equally benefit UK bioeconomy and science.As such, this proposal is in perfect alignment with the BBSRCs core aim to support enabling basic science. The project's focus fits squarely within BBSRC strategy, which identifies MCs as a priority area. Within the TRDF call, this proposal fits with the enabling of "new approaches to the analysis and interpretation of research data in the biological sciences", "new frameworks for the curation, sharing, and re-use/re-purposing of research data in the biological sciences", and "community approaches to the sharing of research data".