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来提高效率并防止水污染物对人类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，因为它们具有污染物矿化和能源效率的高潜力。通过在设计和操作这些系统时考虑到生态原则，我们可以提高其有效性和稳定性。我的计划的长期目标是发展微生物群落结构和功能的机械理解，以生态理论，微生物生理学和建模为指导，并将其应用于生物水处理系统。 短期目标。在未来五年，我的小组将追求以下目标： 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和入侵决定因素中的作用 3)锰氧化细菌的生理生态学研究。 Approach.通过结合全尺度系统分析和建模，我将描述饮用水生物过滤器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确定性和随机过程在社区集会的相对重要性，这如何影响生物多样性，以及功能和系统发育稳定性的扩散的影响。值得注意的是，在不同的强度选择和分散的相对重要性将进行调查。锰是饮用水中的一种优先污染物，可通过生物处理最佳去除。目前对锰氧化细菌的生理学和生态学的不完全理解限制了我们开发生态解决方案以保留锰氧化细菌并确保生物过滤器群落中可预测的活性的能力。这项工作将研究不同的锰氧化细菌的生理学，并使用它们作为一个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。这项工作的结果将揭示生态解决方案，以加强生物强化。 冲击提高效率和新颖的处理设计可以带来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，改善资源回收，减少工程生物系统的物理和环境足迹。开发生物技术去除饮用水中的锰将为实现最近制定的饮用水法规提供新的处理前景。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的影响。这项工作将研究微生物生态学中的基本问题，并对多个领域产生影响。

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.