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Led by Dr. Ian Joint of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, this NERC funded research project is being undertaken by an integrated consortium of UK microbiologists, utilising post-genomics and proteomics to investigate aquatic microbial assemblages that control biogeochemical cycles. See our Background page for further information. |
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the metagenome of marine microbial communities using cutting-edge technologies and to test three specific hypotheses:-
- Hypothesis 1: That microbes in the ocean exist in definable communities and that biogeochemical fluxes depend on microbial community structure.
- Hypothesis 2: That the oligotrophic ocean is ultimately limited by the availability of nitrogen and that the scale of nitrogen limitation is a function of interactions between microbes in the assemblage.
- Hypothesis 3: That marine microbial activity is a major source of atmospheric biogases, much of which involves anaerobic metabolism in an aerobic environment.
In addition, it is proposed to use the expertise of the consortium to make a significant contribution to understanding a largely ignored (until recently) and rapidly changing aspect of climate change that the pH of the ocean is decreasing as a result of the dissolution of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere.
The aim is to use genomics / transcriptomics / proteomics to investigate how the environment, and human influences on it, influences community structure and function. It is also anticipated that the project will lead to the development of microarrays that will form the basis for environmental research in the next decade.