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

苏打湖是地球上最碱性的水生环境之一，也是已知的最具生产力的生态系统之一。高pH、高盐度和广泛的自由基活性导致了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--类似于古代叠层石或血栓石的复杂的多层微生物群落--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故乡。最近，我的团队比较了来自加拿大苏打湖--不列颠哥伦比亚省卡里波帕托--和蒙古库伦达大草原上的亚洲苏打湖的微生物垫子。元基因组学分析表明，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--一个在极端和动态的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实现一种技术上和经济上可行的生物过程，由太阳能提供动力，用于直接捕获空气并将二氧化碳转化为生物能源。今年，我们已经能够将这项研究推向试点规模。安装特点是&gt；300米的透明管道和近1,000升的总体积。它是用加拿大苏打湖微生物组播种的，在艾伯塔省的室外环境中成功运行了140天，展示了坚固性和生产力。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提炼成甲烷和藻青素，这是一种宝贵的天然产品。这些积极的结果将该项目推向了关键阶段，最近成立了一家剥离公司Synergia Biotech。它被选入了创意销毁实验室，这是一个加拿大范围内的项目，为投资者提供商业指导和机会。扩大规模和商业化正在成为一种真正的可能性。我的发现计划通过使用尖端组学方法解决系统的基本生态问题来支持这一发展：(I)执行光合作用的微生物如何应对原生生物和病毒的捕食？(2)它们是否依赖诸如CRISPR-CAS系统等已知防御系统？(Iii)它们是否为了躲避捕食而进行多样化？(4)光养生物和异养生物之间的相互作用损失了多少碳？(V)苏打湖沉积物中丰富的神秘微生物--洛基-古生菌能否用于进一步改进生物提炼？这项研究将回答微生物生态学中关于稳健性和生产力的基本问题。它支持减少二氧化碳排放的技术开发和高价值天然产品的生产，直接为加拿大的绿色能源组合和经济做出贡献。

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.