Study of the role of microbial networks on carbon cycling under controlled pressure and temperature conditions

This project will monitor the carbon cycle in pressure- and temperature-controlled environments consisting of soil and microbes under different nutrient regimes. We will study the evolution of the systems depending on the microbial metabolic pathway and environmental conditions and will trace the isotopic differences of carbon during their evolution. In parallel, we will monitor the evolution of the gases in the head-space with CO2-, CO-, and CH4-sensors. In this project the candidate will study and characterize the evolution of carbon-base gases, and nutrients tracing isotopic differences as the systems evolve.

The study will be performed for a variety of selected microorganisms and different pressure, temperature and atmospheric gas conditions, using the Space-Q environmental chamber1 at UoA, and where controlled pressure, temperature, relative humidity and radiation. environments can be created. The candidate will monitor the evolution of environmental variables of the soil and microbes under different nutrient regimes using the Metabolt2 system at UoA and will characterise the response using state of the art stable isotope probing enabled metagenomic sequencing used by Dr Kumaresan at QUB.

This project represents a novel collaboration between the Planetary Sciences group in Aberdeen University (UoA), and the Environmental Microbiology group in Queen's University Belfast (QUB). The project will involve the use of the Space-Q environmental chamber and Metabolt device designed by Profs. Zorzano and Martin-Torres and the sequencing, ecological and evolutionary approaches designed in the Kumaresan's group2. The successful candidate will be based in the UoA School of Geosciences under the primary supervision of Prof Zorzano but will also spend time (a 2 or 3-months visit per year) in QUB School of Biological Sciences under the primary supervision of Dr Kumaresan3.

As this is a cross-disciplinary project, the candidate will gain a repertoire of highly sought skills i: (i) the design of experiments in controlled pressurised systems for Earth and space applications; (ii) state-of-the-art in situ monitoring and modelling of environmental conditions; (iii) molecular ecology tools (i.e. stable isotope probing enabled metagenomics/proteomics) to track isotopes within the microbial communities to identify metabolic networks; (iv) genome-resolved metagenomics to study eco-evolutionary adaptations; and (v) synthetic communities and CRISPR-mediated genome engineering strategies to study microbial interactions.

As part of the training, the student will learn to prepare of samples under controlled pressurised systems at the Space-Q chamber, the development of bio-geochemistry models at UoA by Prof. Zorzano and Prof. Martin-Torres, and environmental molecular ecology, microbial physiology, bioinformatics, and geochemistry tools at QUB by Dr Kumaresan.