{"173061":{"#nid":"173061","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Research Will Study How Diversity Helps Microbial Communities Respond to Change","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have received a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how complex microbial systems use their genetic diversity to respond to human-induced change. The work is important because these microbial communities play critical roles in the environment, breaking down pollutants, recycling nutrients \u2013 and serving as major sources of nitrogen and carbon.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDespite the importance of the microbes, relatively few among the thousands of species that make up a typical microbial community have been studied extensively. The relatively unknown organisms within these communities may have genes that could help address critical environmental, energy and other challenges.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe are all dependent on these microbes,\u201d said Kostas Konstantinidis, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the grant\u2019s principal investigator. \u201cThere are many different species and a huge amount of diversity out there. This project will allow us to look at the details of how this diversity is generated, how redundant it is and how these microbes are changing in response to perturbations in the environment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe funding, from the NSF\u2019s \u201cDimensions of Biodiversity\u201d program, will support a collaborative effort involving Konstantinidis and two other Georgia Tech researchers: Eberhardt Voit and Jim Spain. Voit holds the David D. Flanagan Chair in Biological Systems within the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. Spain is a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research will initially focus on Lake Lanier, a large man-made lake located near Atlanta. Beyond the experimental work, the research will involve extensive mathematical modeling of the complex microbial communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe want to see how the microbial communities of the lake change over time, and how the perturbations affect that,\u201d said Konstantinidis, who holds the Carlton S. Wilder Chair in Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. \u201cWe then want to extend our understanding to other ecosystems, such as the Gulf of Mexico.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers will set up mesocosms \u2013 bioreactors \u2013 in the laboratory with microbial populations from Lake Lanier. They will feed these populations pollutants such as hydrocarbons, antibiotics and pesticides to see how they respond and how they deal with compounds to which they may not have been exposed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSometimes they may not have the genes to break down the pollutants and may not encode the right enzymes,\u201d Konstantinidis said. \u201cBut if you give them enough time, these microbes somehow innovate. We want to understand the genetic mechanisms that allow the microbes to break down a compound that they are seeing for the first time.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe grant will allow the Georgia Tech researchers to expand knowledge of \u201crare\u201d microbes, largely unknown organisms that may harbor useful genes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe think these unusual microbes may be the key ones,\u201d Konstantinidis said. \u201cThough they may be low in abundance, the whole community may depend on them. When you have a new pollutant, these rare microbes may become more important by providing the genetic diversity needed.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EExtending this understanding will be challenging, however, because few species can be cultured in the laboratory. That difficulty is leading Konstantinidis and his team to develop new tools that allow studying the organisms in the field, without culturing them under laboratory settings. Addressing those challenges may lead to the creation of additional techniques that could benefit other areas of biology, engineering and medicine.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOne of the most common techniques is to take the microbial DNA and decode it,\u201d he explained. \u201cFrom the DNA, we can tell what the organism is and what it may be doing in the environment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut studying DNA brings another set of challenges. The genes are rarely recovered intact based on these genomic techniques, and frequently include only part of the genome or are contaminated by DNA from other species.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBioinformatics is a big issue for us, because that is how we can put the pieces together,\u201d Konstantinidis explained. \u201cWe have to make sense of pieces of DNA from perhaps thousands of organisms. This is where biology, computing and engineering are merging to find clever ways to accomplish such tasks.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPart of investigating how the microbial community responds to change will include assessing the effects of rising temperatures. Will global climate change cause increased respiration among the microbes and therefore boost carbon dioxide output, or will temperature change lead the organisms to store carbon, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA big part of the scientific community is working on questions like this to get a better understanding and better model of how microbial systems will respond,\u201d Konstantinidis said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EModeling will be important to understand not only how microbial communities will respond to broad climate changes, but also how they might react to such dramatic perturbations as large oil spills.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFrom small experiments in the lab, the goal is to eventually model whole ecosystems \u2013 how Lake Lanier works or how the Gulf of Mexico works in terms of the microbes that are there,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to have a more predictive model of how these communities that are so diverse will respond to a perturbation like an oil spill or rising tempeartures. With so many thousands of organisms from different species, we need modeling to put it all together.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant DEB-1241046 . The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contact\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986)(\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have received a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how complex microbial systems use their genetic diversity to respond to human-induced change. The work is important because these microbial communities play critical roles in the environment, breaking down pollutants, recycling nutrients \u2013 and serving as major sources of nitrogen and carbon.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A new study will examine how diversity will help the microbial community respond to man-made changes."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2012-11-26 12:29:59","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:14","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2012-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"173011":{"id":"173011","type":"image","title":"Microbial diversity","body":null,"created":"1449178999","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:43:19","changed":"1475894814","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:54","alt":"Microbial diversity","file":{"fid":"195774","name":"microbial-diversity1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2500077,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/microbial-diversity1_0.jpg?itok=7NTxvArO"}},"173021":{"id":"173021","type":"image","title":"Microbial diversity2","body":null,"created":"1449178999","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:43:19","changed":"1475894814","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:54","alt":"Microbial diversity2","file":{"fid":"195775","name":"microbial-diversity2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2047014,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/microbial-diversity2_0.jpg?itok=D6fWv5-P"}},"173031":{"id":"173031","type":"image","title":"Microbial diversity3","body":null,"created":"1449178999","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:43:19","changed":"1475894814","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:54","alt":"Microbial diversity3","file":{"fid":"195776","name":"microbial-diversity3.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity3_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity3_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":579804,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/microbial-diversity3_0.jpg?itok=KsVh6IEK"}},"173041":{"id":"173041","type":"image","title":"Microbial diversity4","body":null,"created":"1449178999","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:43:19","changed":"1475894814","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:54","alt":"Microbial diversity4","file":{"fid":"195777","name":"microbial-diversity4.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity4_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microbial-diversity4_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1188817,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/microbial-diversity4_0.jpg?itok=oBS-Ya4C"}}},"media_ids":["173011","173021","173031","173041"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[{"id":"8906","name":"genes"},{"id":"51251","name":"genetic diversity"},{"id":"51291","name":"human-induced change"},{"id":"12758","name":"Kostas Konstantinidis"},{"id":"51281","name":"microbial community"},{"id":"167864","name":"School of Civil and Environmental Engineering"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39541","name":"Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}