MECOMECON: MEthanotrophic diversity and gene expression as a COntrolling factor of global MEthane CONsumption

微生物是地球生态系统的催化剂和驱动力。尽管环境微生物群落很重要，但它们并没有列入生物多样性保护议程。关于微生物群落的脆弱性和恢复力，我们一无所知，而将微生物活动与物种特性相联系的固有问题又加剧了这种情况。这方面的知识目前在全球保护工作中缺乏，但考虑到全球生态系统面临的挑战，这是迫切需要的。MECOMECON项目提出甲烷氧化细菌（MOB）作为微生物模型组，以评估微生物多样性与生态系统功能相关的假设。MOB催化一种重要的生态系统服务（减缓温室气体CH4），因此有必要调查气候变化和人为干扰对这些社区的恢复力和脆弱性的影响。在MECOMCON多样性的MOB与消费的甲烷使用多样性分析技术（微阵列，454焦磷酸测序）在一系列关键的原始和耕作的土壤和沉积物在欧洲覆盖重要的甲烷来源。经典的宏观生态实验（梯度，人工群落，去除实验，干扰后的时间序列）将使用这些栖息地的MOB社区进行，以评估MOB社区的恢复力和脆弱性。在一套生境和干扰中获得的参数（活跃与不活跃的多样性、丰度、CH4消耗动力学）将在一个包含微生物特征的过程模型中实施，以便从群落组成预测对干扰的反应。后者对于有关自然生态系统和管理的生态系统中温室气体排放或消费问题的政策或管理准则具有重要意义。欧洲研究联盟通过汇集有关过程和细菌的知识、实验设计和分子多样性评估方法的专业知识以及宏基因组数据处理来发挥协同作用。所涵盖的栖息地保证了这项工作对欧洲广泛影响的价值。

Microbes are the catalysts and drivers of ecosystems on Earth. Despite their importance environmental microbial communities are not on the biodiversity conservation agenda. Nothing is known regarding the vulnerability and resilience of microbial communities a situation exacerbated by the inherent problem of assigning microbial activity to species identity. This knowledge is currently lacking in the global conservations efforts but is urgently needed considering the challenges that global, ecosystems are facing. The MECOMECON project proposes methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) as a model group of microbes to assess the hypotheses that microbial diversity is linked to ecosystem functioning. MOB catalyse a vital ecosystem service (mitigation of the greenhouse gas CH4) necessitating investigations on the impact of climate change and anthropogenic disturbance on resilience and vulnerability of these communities. In MECOMECON diversity of MOB is linked to consumption of methane using diversity profiling techniques (micro array, 454 pyrosequencing) in a range of key pristine and cultivated soils and sediments in Europe covering important methane sources. Classical macro ecological experiments (gradients, artificial communities, removal experiments, time series after disturbance) will be carried out using the MOB communities of these habitats in order to assess resilience and vulnerability of MOB communities. The parameters obtained (active vs. inactive diversity, abundance, CH4 consumption kinetics) in the set of habitats and disturbances will be implemented in a process model incorporating microbial traits in order to predict response to disturbance from community composition. The latter is of importance for policy or management guidelines concerning questions related to greenhouse gas emissions or consumption in natural and managed ecosystems. The European Research Consortium synergises by bringing together knowledge on the process and the bacteria, expertise on experimental design and molecular diversity assessment methodology, metagenomic data handling. The habitats covered warrant the value of this work for Europe wide impact.