A microbial game of thrones - from theory to application

细菌是微小的微生物，通常比人类头发的宽度小一百倍，但它们仍然构成了地球上所有生命物质的很大一部分。它们也是地球上化学元素循环的主要原因。它们是理解全球变暖后果的关键组成部分-主要由化石燃料燃烧引起。在分子水平上，细菌比动物或植物表现出更多的生物多样性。在自然生态系统中，它们形成高度复杂和动态的群落。到目前为止，这些群落的生态学已经违背了功能理论的发展，功能理论可以用来理解自然界中元素的循环，或者合理地设计细菌群落来做有用的事情，比如生产可再生能源来缓解全球变化。两种相互竞争的生态学观点被称为“利基”和“中性”理论。“生态位”观点认为，每种细菌在自然界中都有其适当的位置，当环境有利于其特定特性时，它们将胜过竞争对手。“中性”观点认为，许多不同的物种具有相似的特性，任何单一物种的生态成功都是由偶然过程决定的。然而，这两种观点都不能解释微生物群落仅由少数细菌主导的一般观察结果（符合“生态位”理论），但这些赢家显然是随机更替的（微生物权力游戏，符合“中性”理论）。采用经济科学的概念，拟议的研究调查是否“利基”和“中性”的观点可以统一到一个总体理论的微生物生态学，可以解释这些一般性的意见。我的中心前提是，在微生物生态学中，种群规模和生态适合度之间存在正相关关系，这是由短时间尺度上的微进化带来的。这个前提类似于财富和财富回报之间的正相关关系，经济学家用来解释财富分配的高度不平等。NSERC的这项发现研究旨在为这一新理论提供实验支持，并通过为可再生生物能源生产提供强大且具有成本效益的过程来应用它。该项目的团队将在稳定条件下对微生物群落进行长期连续培养，同时利用下一代DNA测序技术监测种群动态。总之，这些方法使我能够评估与新进化的生物多样性相关的潜在健身效益。如果成功，该研究将为微生物生态学做出开创性的贡献，并有助于解决具有高度社会相关性的现实问题-经济上可行的可持续能源生产过程。

Bacteria are tiny microbes, typically a hundred times smaller than the width of a human hair, but together they still make up a large part of all living matter on Earth. They are also largely responsible for the cycling of the chemical elements on our planet. They are a key component in understanding the consequences of global warming - brought about mainly by fossil fuel burning.***At the molecular level, bacteria display much more biodiversity than animals or plants. In natural ecosystems they form highly complex and dynamic communities. The ecology of these communities has so far defied the development of functional theory that can be used to understand the cycling of the elements in nature, or to rationally design bacterial communities to do useful things like production of renewable energy to mitigate global change.***Two competing ecological perspectives are known as "niche" and "neutral" theory. The "niche" perspective holds that each bacterium has its proper place in nature and will outperform its competitors when the environment favours its specific properties. The "neutral" perspective holds that many different species have similar properties and the ecological success of any single species is determined by chance processes. However, neither perspective can explain general observations that microbial communities are dominated by only a handful of bacteria (consistent with "niche" theory) yet show apparently random turnover of these winners (the microbial game of thrones, consistent with "neutral" theory).***Adopting concepts from the economical sciences, the proposed research investigates whether the "niche" and "neutral" perspectives can be unified into an overarching theory for microbial ecology that can explain those general observations. My central premise is that in microbial ecology there exists a positive relationship between population size and ecological fitness, brought about by micro-evolution on short timescales. This premise is analogous to the positive relationship between wealth and returns on wealth, that economists use to explain the very high inequality in wealth distributions.***This NSERC discovery research aims to generate experimental support for this new theory - and to apply it, by contributing to a robust and cost-effective process for renewable bio-energy production. The program's team will perform long-term continuous cultivation of microbial communities under stable conditions, while monitoring population dynamics with next generation DNA sequencing technology. Together, these approaches enable me to assess potential fitness benefits associated with newly evolved biodiversity.***If successful, the research will make a groundbreaking contribution to microbial ecology and contribute to a real-world problem of high societal relevance - an economically feasible process for sustainable energy production.