Harnessing the microalgae microbiome for biotechnology. Microalgae microbiome

Microalgae find use as feedstock for biofuel production, as animal feed or as producers of high valuable compounds. Due to increasing industrial demand, microalgae are cultivated in large-scale production processes. However, contamination of microorganisms affects reproducibility and controllability of large-scale cultivation approaches. Our idea is to use beneficial algae-bacteria interactions to design biocontrol strategies. Bacteria-microalgae interactions have e range of potential outcomes; algae provide fixed carbon in return for micro- and macronutrients produced by bacteria. We studied naturally occurring microbiome-algae associations on snowfields and in freshwaters at two geographically distant locations in the Austrian Alps by 16S and 18S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.