Project description:Large amounts of carbon sequestered in permafrost are becoming available for microbial degradation. We investigated 1,529 microbial metagenome-assembled genomes recovered from our site to understand carbon processing in this environment. Metabolic reconstruction, supported by metatranscriptomic and metaproteomic data, revealed key populations involved in organic matter degradation, including bacteria encoding a pathway for xylose degradation only previously identified in fungi.
Project description:Mitigation of N2O-emissions from soils is needed to reduce climate forcing by food production. Inoculating soils with N2O-reducing bacteria would be effective, but costly and impractical as a standalone operation. Here we demonstrate that digestates obtained after biogas production may provide a low-cost and widely applicable solution. Firstly, we show that indigenous N2O-reducing bacteria in digestates grow to high levels during anaerobic enrichment under N2O. Gas kinetics and meta-omic analysis show that the N2O respiring organisms, recovered as metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) grow by harvesting fermentation intermediates of the methanogenic consortium. Three digestate-derived denitrifying bacteria were obtained through isolation, one of which matched the recovered MAG of a dominant Dechloromonas-affiliated N2O reducer. While the identified N2O-reducers encoded genes required for a full denitrification pathway and could thus both produce and sequester N2O, their regulatory traits predicted that they act as N2O-sinks in the current system. Secondly, moving towards practical application, we show that these isolates grow by aerobic respiration in digestates, and that fertilization with these enriched digestates reduces N2O emissions. This shows that the ongoing implementation of biogas production in agriculture opens a new avenue for cheap and effective reduction of N2O emissions from food production.
Project description:Groundwater samples were collected from five wells in Alberta, Canada. The sampling location and time are indicated in the table below. 13 to 29 genomes were assembled from each metagenome. Proteomic analyses were performed to investigate which genomes and genes were expressed in each well. Sample ID Location Latitude (NAD 83) Longitude (NAD 83) Sampling date 19GWC19026 218 Cluny 50.85 -112.84 30/07/2019 19GWC19028 114 Ross Creek 49.99 -110.46 31/07/2019 19GWC19045 265 Metiskow 52.42 -110.61 18/09/2019 19GWE00050 991 Cynthia 56.22 -117.81 04/09/2019 19GWE00515 33 Fort McMurray 56.98 -111.85 17/09/2019
Project description:Metagenome Assembled Genomes (MAGs) obtained from an enrichment culture of Dead Sea underwater-spring biofilm. Genome sequencing and assembly