Microbial Growth, Interactions and Biogeographies from ‘Omics Data

Microbial Growth, Interactions and
Biogeographies from ‘Omics Data

Jed Fuhrman
University of Southern California

The Fuhrman Lab participates in multiple ways in the pursuit of ultimate CBIOMES goals. Our participation primarily includes the provision of microbial biogeographic data and other microbial data, plus biological oceanographic knowledge facilitating the development and evaluation of regional and global models. The data and knowledge specifically are on the identities, distributions, functions, rates (including growth), and interactions of a broad array of microorganisms, including Bacteria, Archaea, Viruses, and Protists. We also work with modelers to provide various levels of “reality checks” on the microbial processes and interactions within the models. The specific goals of CBIOMES where we most closely align are: (1) comprehensive observed global biogeographies (organisms, processes, rates), including seasonality and interannual dynamics, that can be used to set up model initial conditions and to compare model outcomes to observed biogeographies and seasonalities, (2) underlying mechanistic models capturing enough of reality to reproduce the observed distributions and temporal variations and to predict responses to global climate change, etc. Here, our contributions lie in providing functional traits, potential process rates, and likely interactions of the organisms observed and identified in field samples. Looking ahead we will be participating in CBIOMES developing more mechanistically granular models and continued progress in integrating all the different contributions of CBIOMES PIs.