GNPS - Using genomics to understand microbial adaptation to soil warming - drought tolerance in Actinobacteria

The earth’s climate is warming, and warming-induced biological feedbacks to climate threaten to further destabilize ecosystems. In a 30-year soil warming field experiment at the Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts, microbial isolates from heated (+5 degrees C above ambient) show signs of irreversible adaptation to warming in traits associated with altered soil biogeochemical cycling. Our labs have documented physiological adaptation in all three dimensions of microbial activities: growth, resource acquisition, and stress tolerance. We will use metabolomics to investigate the nature of adaptation due to long-term warming, where reduced soil organic matter, reduced soil water holding capacity and potentially increased niche partitioning may be a selective pressure. Specifically we hypothesize that increased drought tolerance of Actinobacteria exposed to long-term warming is due to production of more or different compatible solutes compared to isolates from controls.

The work (proposal:https://doi.org/10.46936/10.25585/60008103) conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https://ror.org/04xm1d337), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.