Harnessing the power of soda lake microbial mats for CO2 capture and conversion

苏打湖是地球上碱性最强的水生环境之一，也是已知最具生产力的生态系统之一。高pH值、高盐度和广泛的自由基活动导致水生生物生存的极端条件。与此同时，几乎无穷无尽的碳酸氢盐供应使微生物垫-复杂的多层微生物群落类似于古老的叠层石或血栓石-能够进行活跃的光合作用。苏打湖分布在世界各地，加拿大是其中一些的家园。 最近，我的团队比较了来自加拿大苏打湖--公元前的卡里布帕托--和蒙古库伦达草原上的亚洲苏打湖的微生物垫。宏基因组学分析表明，这些遥远的生态系统共享一个共同的生态蓝图，一个相似的微生物群落。显然，大自然已经为这个生态系统提出了一个单一的解决方案一个在极端和动态环境中既有生产力又有活力的社区结构。 我的目标是利用这一蓝图来实现一个技术上和经济上可行的生物过程，由太阳能驱动，直接捕获空气并将二氧化碳转化为生物能源。 今年，我们已经能够将研究扩大到试点规模。该装置具有>300米的透明管道和近1,000升的总容积。它接种了加拿大苏打湖微生物组，并在阿尔伯塔的户外环境中成功运行了140天，表现出稳健性和生产力。利用苏打湖沉积物中发生的自然过程，我的团队发现了如何将产生的生物质生物精炼成甲烷和藻蓝蛋白，这是一种有价值的天然产品。 这些积极的结果推动该计划进入了一个关键阶段，最近成立了一家分拆公司Synergia Biotech。它被选入创意破坏实验室，这是一个加拿大范围内的项目，提供商业指导和接触投资者的机会。扩大规模和商业化正在成为一种真实的可能性。 我的发现计划通过用尖端的组学方法解决系统的基本生态学来支持这一发展：（i）进行光合作用的微生物如何科普原生生物和病毒的捕食？(ii)它们是否依赖于已知的防御系统，如CRISPR-Cas系统？(iii)是为了逃避捕食而多样化吗(iv)光养生物和异养生物之间的相互作用损失了多少碳？(v)Loki-archaea，苏打湖沉积物中丰富的神秘微生物，可以用来进一步改善生物精炼吗？ 这项研究将回答微生物生态学中关于鲁棒性和生产力的基本问题。它支持开发减少二氧化碳排放的技术和生产高价值的天然产品，直接促进加拿大的绿色能源组合和经济。

Soda lakes are among the most alkaline aquatic environments on earth and among the most productive ecosystems known. High pH, high salinity, and extensive free radical activity lead to extreme conditions for survival of aquatic life. At the same time, a virtually endless supply of bicarbonate enables active photosynthesis by microbial mats - complex multi-layered microbial communities similar to ancient stromatolites or thrombolites. Soda lakes are distributed all over the world and Canada is home to some of those. Recently, my team compared microbial mats from Canadian soda lakes - Cariboo Pateau, BC - to Asian soda lakes on the Kulunda steppe, Mongolia. Metagenomics analyses showed that these distant ecosystems share a common ecological blueprint, a similar microbial community. Apparently, nature has come up with a single solution for this ecosystem a community structure that is both productive and robust in an extreme and dynamic environment. My aim is to use that blueprint to realize a technically and economically feasible bio-process, powered by the sun, for direct-air-capture and conversion of CO2 into bio-energy. This year, we have been able to take the research to pilot-scale. The installation features >300 m of transparent pipes and a total volume of almost 1,000 L. It was seeded with the Canadian soda lake microbiome and operated successfully for 140 days in the Alberta outdoor environment, demonstrating both robustness and productivity. Making use of natural processes occurring in soda lake sediments, my team discovered how to bio-refine the produced biomass into methane and phyocyanin, a valuable natural product. These positive results have propelled the program into a critical stage, with a spin off company, Synergia Biotech, incorporated recently. It was selected into the Creative Destruction Lab, a Canada-wide program that provides business mentorship and access to investors. Scale up and commercialization are becoming a real possibility. My Discovery Program supports this development by addressing the fundamental ecology of the system with cutting edge -omics approaches: (i) how do the microbes performing photosynthesis cope with predation by protists and viruses? (ii) do they depend on known defenses such as CRISPR-Cas systems? (iii) do they diversify to escape predation? (iv) how much carbon is lost by interactions between phototrophs and heterotrophs? (v) Can Loki-archaea, enigmatic microbes abundant in soda lake sediments, be used to further improve bio-refining? This research will answer fundamental questions on robustness and productivity in microbial ecology. It supports development of technology for mitigating CO2 emissions and production of a high-value natural product, directly contributing to Canada's green energy portfolio and economy.