soil metatranscriptome Raw sequence reads

This project aims to highlight fungal functional traits related to different lifestyle strategies of soil fungi involved in carbon cycling in boreal forest. Specifically, we explore mechanism underlying variation in ecosystem fertility and production, and how this relates to carbon storage. We will assess carbon transformations during decomposition and microbial metabolism by targeting expression of genes involved in production of enzymes involved in organic matter degradation and intracellular CO2 release. RNA extracted from forest soil samples will subjected to massive sequencing and relevant gene families will be identified and selected by an innovative bioinformatics approach. The data will constitute a valuable resource, in which community-wide expression levels of particular gene families may be assessed, and potentially also linked to responsible organisms by sequence similarity to database records. The ultimate aim of this pioneer approach is to provide novel insights about the interplay between microbial traits, such as decomposer capacity and metabolic efficiency, and ecosystem level processes, such as carbon sequestration, in order to increase the predictive capacity of ecosystem models.