Metagenome analysis of soil-dwelling bacterial decomposers following long-term warming using a reference genome approach

Presenter

Seojin Jung

Campus

UMass Amherst

Sponsor

Jeffrey Blanchard, Department of Biology, UMass Amherst

Schedule

Session 4, 2:30 PM - 3:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board A47, Campus Center Auditorium, Row 3 (A41-A60) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

As the world warms, organisms and environments are impacted down to the microbes in the soil, particularly those that are deeply involved in important biogeochemical processes such as carbon cycling. Our research attempts to investigate the effect of long-term warming on soil-dwelling bacterial decomposers by analyzing metatranscriptomic and metagenomic data from artificially heated plots in Harvard Forest. To accomplish this, we recovered 817 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from a coassembly consisting of 21 phyla across 28 soil samples. These MAGs are being used to read map 28 individual metagenomes and metatranscriptomes and uncover changes in the abundance and activity of bacterial decomposers in response to long-term warming. By utilizing new techniques in metagenomics—namely, analyzing the taxonomic and ecological traits of metatranscriptomic reads mapped against referential MAGs—we hope to gain a greater understanding of the role microbes play in carbon cycling and how the processes involved are affected by ongoing climate change. 

Keywords

microbial ecology, bacterial decomposers, metagenomics

Research Area

Biological Organisms

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