Opis projektu
Mechanistyczny wgląd w uwalnianie węgla przez wirusy w oceanie
Zakażenie fitoplanktonu przez wirusy uwalnia ich zawartość do puli rozpuszczonej materii organicznej w oceanie. Pomimo znaczenia tego obwodu wirusowego w homeostazie ekosystemu niewiele wiadomo o mechanizmach leżących u jego podstaw. Zespół finansowanego przez Europejską Radę ds. Badań Naukowych projektu VIBES ma na celu zbadanie wpływu wirusowego obwodu na styl życia bakterii. Naukowcy wykorzystają transkryptomikę i metabolomikę do rozszyfrowania mechanizmów i sygnałów chemicznych, które rządzą interakcjami mikrobów. Projekt VIBES rzuci też światło na to, jak interakcje w mikroskali wpływają na obieg węgla w oceanie.
Cel
The fate of carbon in marine environments is influenced by associations between heterotrophic bacteria and phytoplankton, mediated by chemical communication and metabolic exchange. Deciphering the nature of these associations is critical given the impact of marine plankton on biogeochemical cycling and climate regulation. Viral infection is a prevalent mortality agent of algal blooms in the ocean, leading to massive release of biomass to the dissolved organic matter (DOM) pool, one of the largest global inventories of carbon. This process, termed the ‘viral shunt’, is a key ecosystem process, but remains unquantifiable and mechanistically enigmatic. Furthermore, the metabolic composition of the DOM released following viral infection (vDOM) and its role in shaping microbial communities are largely unknown. In the VIBES project, we will disentangle the complexity of the viral shunt, and elucidate its impact on microbial lifestyles (mutualism and pathogenicity) during algal bloom demise. We will generate experimental approaches to study these bacterial lifestyles, and uncover the chemical language that mediates them. Our expertise in marine microbial chemical ecology, using single-cell transcriptomics to quantify host-pathogen interactions, and metabolomics to identify the chemical signals that govern microbial interactions, will pave the way for unprecedented quantification of the viral shunt. We will investigate the molecular and metabolic basis of virus-derived microbial lifestyles and their consequence for the flow of carbon in the ocean, both under controlled lab-based experiments and during complex interactions in the ocean. We will investigate how microbial lifestyles that specialize on vDOM can determine the partitioning of carbon between the dissolved and particulate fractions, representing carbon cycling and export, respectively. Ultimately, VIBES will enable to evaluate the importance of microscale interactions to the cycling of carbon in the ocean.
Dziedzina nauki
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiological behavioural sciencesethologybiological interactions
- agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass
Program(-y)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Temat(-y)
System finansowania
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedInstytucja przyjmująca
7610001 Rehovot
Izrael