Project description:Monitoring microbial communities can aid in understanding the state of these habitats. Environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques provide efficient and comprehensive monitoring by capturing broader diversity. Besides structural profiling, eDNA methods allow the study of functional profiles, encompassing the genes within the microbial community. In this study, three methodologies were compared for functional profiling of microbial communities in estuarine and coastal sites in the Bay of Biscay. The methodologies included inference from 16S metabarcoding data using Tax4Fun, GeoChip microarrays, and shotgun metagenomics.
Project description:Algal bacterial interactions in phycosphere microbial communities have important implications for the stability and productivity of algal biofuel systems, and algal metabolites are important mediators of those interactions. We characterized exometabolites and cell associated metabolites from the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum across different growth stages.