18-BBSRC-NSF/BIO Focusing a quantitative lens on synthetic phototrophic communities

Microbes, such as bacteria and other single-celled organisms, are found as communities that populate nearly all environments on our planet from the human gut, to the surface of corals in the oceans and plant roots buried in the soil. These diverse and complex populations interact with each other and are important to maintain the health of the environment around them. Understanding how these microbes interact will reveal factors that build and maintain robust, productive populations. Synthetic communities of bacteria isolated from the hot spring mats of Yellowstone National Park will be used to test and model microbial community systems to help understand the physical and metabolic conversations among microbes in extreme environments.

This project is focused on building synthetic communities of microbes in the laboratory present in the hot spring mats of Yellowstone National Park. These 'laboratory communities' will reveal the overall metabolic landscape of the mats using both the entire microbial membership of the mat and synthetic combinations The application of omics technologies will reveal key metabolic pathways among the members of the community under different light and nutrient conditions and over the diel cycle. The work will also highlight the concept that microbial communities act like an integrated machine rather than as individual species grown under axenic conditions in the laboratory, and that this integration maintains functionalities critical for life in their natural habitat. Experiments will also be performed to analyze how disruptions in the local environment (e.g. abrupt changes in light intensity, temperature and nutrient availability) and in the microbial composition (addition of exogenous microbes not normally present in these communities) impact mat growth, structure, electrical and metabolic networks.

The work has broad impacts in that it will establish a model microbial community system for understanding the physical and metabolic interactions among microbes in extreme environments. This will help address issues of metabolic exchange and fitness in other microbial consortia and identify key 'exchange' metabolites that might be critical for growth and regulation. The work may also reveal the ability of these systems to acclimate to changes that are already occurring in our environment (e.g. temperature, nutrient availability and CO2 levels). The project will help to move us beyond the 'Who's there?' approach to studying microbial communities towards a mechanistic and predictive understanding.


The three US laboratories are also committed to extend the work to broader community of scientists/students as well as to the general public (the UK partners also have an active outreach program). These activities include an ongoing summer intern program for college students and teaching freshman classes at Stanford University on microbial consortia and biotic interactions. Additional value will involve the training of students from ethnically diverse backgrounds, not only from Stanford, but also from San Jose State University, which is the major supplier of graduates in education, engineering, computer science and business to the Silicon Valley workforce. The three US investigators will also continue their outreach activity to the general public via lectures, Q&As and media engagements.

Smith and Howe are very actively involved in communication of research to students and the general public, as well as fellow scientists. They teach substantial numbers of high calibre undergraduates directly each year, as well as training PhD students. They and their lab members regularly contribute to university masterclasses, particularly aimed at academically gifted school pupils, especially those from disadvantaged groups, as well as giving lectures in schools. Outreach work to the broader public includes regular participation in events such as 'Pint of Science' and media involvement (eg Smith's recent interview with Jim Al-Khalili's 'The Life Scientific'). Both the Smith and Howe groups have a strong culture of public involvement, and a postdoc in the Howe lab, Dr Paolo Bombelli, was one of the first recipients of the recently-instituted Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Public Engagement, in 2017. Importantly, our experience suggests the nature of the topic studied here should be good for exciting public interest, and offers the potential for public engagement in wider areas such as conservation, evolution, photosynthesis and renewable energy.