Bioremediation Ecology: Fundamental Relationships Between Bioavailability Gradients and Diversity of Contaminant-Degrading Microorganisms

9729857 Ward大多数自然存在的微生物从未被培养过，可能是因为培养基不能很好地反映微生物在自然界中生存的微环境条件。然而，分子生物学方法开始揭示微生物群落主要成员的生态学原理，这导致了它们的培养。我们已经开始了一项“生物修复生态学”计划，以评估化学行为和微生物生态学的基本原理是否会导致如何管理污染物泄漏的更具预测性的知识。我们已经证明，独特的污染物降解微生物可以在模拟低生物利用度微环境的培养基中培养，这种微环境是由污染物吸附到土壤生物物质造成的。在这里，我们将检查他们的适应性相对于污染物降解微生物在不现实的培养基环境中培养。泄漏以混合物的形式发生，但大多数污染物降解微生物是在净化污染物上培养的。我们将研究是否增加污染物混合物的复杂性，以及它们与现实的有机物质微环境的相互作用，增加了生态位多样性，从而增加了有效的原位生物修复所需的专门污染物降解微生物的多样性。这样的结果有可能改变我们对生物修复微生物生态的看法，通过确定最适合的微生物种群并了解它们的专业化，这是成功操纵它们的基础。

9729857 Ward Most naturally occurring microorganisms have never been cultivated, probably because culture media poorly reflect the microenvironmental conditions in which microorganisms live in nature. Molecular biology approaches are however, beginning to reveal principals of the ecology of the dominant members of microbial communities, which are leading to their cultivation. We have begun a program of "bioremediation ecology" to evaluate whether fundamental principles of chemical behavior and microbial ecology lead to a more predictive knowledge of how to manage contaminant spills. We have shown that unique contaminant-degrading microorganisms can be cultivated in media which simulates the low-bioavailability microenvironments resulting from contaminant sorption to soil organism matter. Here, we will examine their fitness relative to contaminant-degrading microorganisms cultivated in unrealistic medium environments. Spills occur as mixtures, yet most contaminant-degrading microogranisms are cultivated on purifies contaminants. We will examine whether increasing complexity of contaminant mixtures, and their interactions with realistic organic-matter microenvironments, increases niche diversity, thereby increasing the diversity of specialized contaminants-degrading microorganisms need for effective in situ bioremediation. Such results have the potential to change the way we think about the microbial ecology of bioremediation, by identifying the most-fit microbial populations and understanding their specializations a basis for their successful manipulation.