Bacteria isolated from carboxylate platform fermentations inoculated with microbial communities from extreme environments.

In an effort to identify microbial communities with superior performances in the carboxylate platform for biofuel and high value chemical production, we screened 501 microbial communities from 77 sites across the continental U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico as inocula. From the best performing communities, we collected >1800 individual isolates by culturing with a variety of media and oxygen conditions. We generated draft genome sequence for 64 of the isolates, selected based on phylogenetic, ecological, and phenotypic variation. These sequences will be used to advance a system to study 1) the role of diversity in functional types within carboxylate platform fermentation communities, 2) the genetic basis for superior performance in these fermentations and 3) the basis of adaptation to extreme conditions.