Managing microbial communities with functional ecology

长期目标。迫切需要可持续和有效的水处理方法，以提高效率并防止水污染物对人和自然环境的负面健康影响。基于开放微生物系统的生物技术是一种有吸引力的解决方案，因为它们具有很高的污染物矿化潜力和能源效率。通过以生态原则设计和运行这些系统，我们可以提高它们的有效性和稳定性。我的计划的长期目标是在生态学理论、微生物生理学和模型的指导下，对微生物群落结构和功能进行机械性的理解，并将其应用于生物水处理系统。 短期目标。在未来五年，我的小组将致力于实现以下目标： 1)描述饮用水生物过滤群落的长期群落组装过程 2)阐明扩散在群落聚集中的作用和入侵的决定因素 3)研究了锰氧化细菌的生理生态。 接近。通过全尺度系统分析和建模，我将描述饮用水生物滤池群落的动态和组装过程。实验室规模的系统将研究扩散如何影响群落聚集中确定性和随机过程的相对重要性，这如何影响生物多样性，以及扩散对功能和系统发育稳定性的影响。值得注意的是，将研究在不同强度下选择和分散的相对重要性。锰是饮用水中的一种优先污染物，可通过生物处理以最佳方式去除。目前对锰氧化细菌的生理学和生态学的不完全了解限制了我们开发生态解决方案来保留锰氧化细菌的能力，并确保生物滤池群落中可预测的活动。这项工作将研究不同的锰氧化细菌的生理学，并将它们作为模型来测试从生态位和中性角度推断的影响入侵成功的因素。这项工作的结果将有助于阐明加强生物增强的生态解决方案。 冲击力。提高效率和新颖的处理设计可产生重大的社会和环境效益，包括改善污染物处理和水质、减少温室气体排放、改进资源回收以及减少工程生物系统的物理和环境足迹。从饮用水中去除锰的生物技术的发展将提供新的处理前景，以实现最近制定的饮用水法规。通过入侵生态学对生物强化的新见解可能在污染物处理领域产生深远影响。这项工作将研究微生物生态学中的基本问题，并在多个领域产生影响。

Long-term goal. Sustainable and effective methods for water treatment are urgently needed to improve efficiency and prevent negative health impacts of water contaminants on people and the natural environment. Biotechnologies based on open microbial systems are an attractive solution due to their high potential for contaminant mineralization and energy efficiency. By designing and operating these systems with ecological principles in mind, we can improve their effectiveness and stability. The long-term goal of my program is to develop a mechanistic understanding of microbial community structure and function that is guided by ecological theory, microbial physiology and modelling, and apply this to biological water treatment systems. Short-term objectives. In the next five years, my group will pursue the following objectives: 1) Describe long-term community assembly processes of drinking water biofiltration communities 2) Elucidate the role of dispersal in community assembly and determinants of invasion 3) Investigate the physiology and ecology of manganese oxidizing bacteria. Approach. By combining analysis of full-scale systems and modelling, I will describe community dynamics and assembly processes of drinking water biofilter communities. Lab-scale systems will examine how dispersal influences the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic processes in community assembly, how this impacts biodiversity, and the influence of dispersal on functional and phylogenetic stability. Notably, the relative importance of selection and dispersal at different strengths will be investigated. Manganese is a priority pollutant in drinking water that is optimally removed using biological treatment. An incomplete understanding of the physiology and ecology of manganese oxidizing bacteria currently limits our ability to develop ecological solutions to retain manganese oxidizing bacteria, and ensure predictable activity in biofilter communities. This work will examine the physiology of diverse manganese oxidizing bacteria and use them as a model to test factors influencing invasion success inferred from both niche and neutral perspectives. The results of this work will shed light on ecological solutions for enhancing bioaugmentation. Impact. Improved efficiency and novel treatment designs could result in major societal and environmental benefits, including improved contaminant treatment and water quality, greenhouse gas mitigation, improved resource recovery, and reduction in the physical and environmental footprints of engineered biological systems. The development of biotechnologies for manganese removal from drinking water will provide new treatment prospects to achieve recently established drinking water regulations. New insights into bioaugmentation through invasion ecology could have far reaching effects in the field of contaminant treatment. This work will investigate fundamental questions in microbial ecology with impacts in multiple fields.