Final Report: Connecting genomic capabilities to physiology and response: Systems biology of the widespread alga Micromonas
- Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), Moss Landing, CA (United States)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
Increased stratification, less mixing and reduced nutrient concentrations in marine surface waters are predicted under a number of climate-change scenarios. These conditions are considered favorable for tiny photosynthetic algae (picophytoplankton), shaping their role in mediating future CO2 conditions. One possibility is that picophytoplankton such as Micromonas that have broad geographical ranges will more successfully adapt to changing environmental conditions. However, their capacity to thrive under the multi-factorial impacts of low pH, low nutrients, increasing temperature and changes in community composition is not known. Here, we developed the dual-Micromonas model system, which entailed generating optimized genomic information for two Micromonas species and developing a highperformance chemostat system in which both CO2 and nutrients could be consistently manipulated. This system is now fully operational. Project results are available in several publications will others are still in the analysis phase. Overall, our results show that Micromonas primary production will likely decrease under predicted future climate conditions. Furthermore, our studies on Micromonas provide new insights to the land plant ancestor, including the discovery of conserved signaling mechanisms (known to be essential to plant development) as well as the discovery of widespread chemical-sensing molecular switches. Collectively, this research highlights Micromonas as an important new model green alga for understanding plant gene networks and evolution as well as for investigating perturbation effects on marine primary production.
- Research Organization:
- Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), Moss Landing, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0004765; #ER64993
- OSTI ID:
- 1158817
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-MBARI-04765
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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