Integrated Microbial Biodiversity Research Progress
A new and powerful field of study known as metagenomics is arguably the quickest, cheapest and most predictive way to understand an ecosystem’s microbial biodiversity. Metagenomics involves studying the genetic sequences of all viruses and microbes found in an environment. Like bones at a dinosaur dig, these genetic fingerprints can be used to construct a big picture of the sort of life in an ecosystem. One major international metagenomic study led by a CIFAR program member showed how viruses contain the main reservoir of global genetic diversity.
By decoding the genomes of microbes, researchers are able to investigate their response to environmental change and their interaction with other organisms in an ecosystem. For example, one program member led an international consortium of scientists who discovered genes that help a certain green algae capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transport it to the depths of the ocean. This activity influences the carbon cycle, a critical factor of climate change. This knowledge could be useful for predicting ecosystem shifts that result from climate change.
Members of the Integrated Microbial Biodiversity program also investigate how seemingly discrete components of an ecosystem might actually work together as a fully integrated system. They are conducting a series of workshops focusing on large data sets gathered from Saanich Inlet, a saltwater ecosystem near Vancouver that contains low levels of oxygen. These workshops are designed to produce a unique, comprehensive picture of this particular system’s microbial inhabitants, and provide a template for many other such studies in other parts of the world.
The discovery of new life forms often brings the concomitant identification of new and interesting biochemical processes. One CIFAR team has discovered several new species of “anaerobes,” or organisms that can grow and survive without oxygen. They have used these organisms to better understand how organelles, the subunits inside cells that have specialized functions, degenerate. Along the same lines, newly discovered marine and deep-sea microbe species are being used to trace how parasites and endosymbionts (organisms that live within the body or cells of other organisms) evolve.
All ecosystems, whether aquatic or terrestrial, natural or man-made, are shaped by microbial activity that we know little about. One microbe at a time, the Integrated Microbial Biodiversity program is helping to change that.