Snapshot
| Outcome: | Marine microbiology is transformed into an integrated field of marine microbial ecology by applying novel molecular technologies and instruments with the goal of monitoring, modeling, and generating new fundamental knowledge about representative microbial ecosystems in the ocean. |
| Geography: | Global |
| Approach: | Expand the field of marine microbial ecology by supporting a limited number of individual expert Investigators Develop tools and resources for the broader marine microbiology research community to accelerate the field’s rate of scientific discovery Stimulate new collaborations among scientists from disparate fields of expertise and create multidisciplinary research teams Develop and apply novel instruments and state-of-the-art molecular technologies that provide insight into genomes, gene and protein expression, and cellular processes Interweave these approaches with the ultimate goal of understanding the role of marine microbial communities in ecosystem and biogeochemical processes
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Initiative Overview
Oceans cover over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and regulate the planet’s weather, climate, and atmospheric composition. They sustain a large proportion of the planet’s biodiversity and contain substantial quantities of living and non-living resources.
Despite the central importance of the oceans to the health, commerce, and climate of the planet, many regions remain unexplored and many of their basic biological and chemical processes are poorly understood. Furthermore, the oceans are experiencing unprecedented stress due to anthropogenic activities, including pollution, increasing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and potentially altered climate patterns. These changes have direct impacts on the oceans’ physical, geochemical, and biological dynamics. Although we increasingly perceive the critical role of ocean processes in the functioning of basic Earth systems, our knowledge about these processes—many of which are mediated by microbial communities—remains limited. In the long term, a better understanding of the role of microorganisms in ocean ecosystems may allow improved monitoring of the overall health of the oceans and their role in regulating and responding to changes in global climate and other critical ecosystem processes.
The field of marine microbiology is evolving rapidly as technological advances and new tools become available. For example, less than 20 years ago the field of marine microbiology was restricted to studies of organisms that could be grown in the laboratory. However, these cultivable microbes accounted for less than one tenth of one percent of the species thought to exist in the ocean. Using new molecular, metagenomic and other approaches, it is now possible to query and study the genetic structures of uncultivated marine microbes and their communities.
The Marine Microbiology Initiative is built upon two areas of scientific focus relating to (1) global marine biological, geological, chemical, and ecosystem processes and (2) feedbacks between marine microbial communities and the Earth system. Over 20 specific research questions support these scientific foci. These questions relate to numerous oceanographic processes and interactions, including:
- The relationships between biodiversity, food webs, and biogeochemical cycling
- Microbial regulation of atmospheric composition
- Predicting the response of marine microbial communities to environmental perturbations
To answer these research questions, the Marine Microbiology Initiative employs three grantmaking Strategies:
A) Individual GBMF Investigators in Marine Microbiology
B) Multidisciplinary Expansion
C) High Impact Research
The grants provided through these Strategies are interwoven to address numerous germane marine microbiology themes, which, in concert, move the Initiative towards achieving its ten-year objective of developing predictive ecosystem models of representative marine environments. Marine microbiology theme areas include biodiversity, metagenomics and metagenomics methods development, ecological theory, evolution, pure culture microbial and virus studies, sensor development, gene and protein expression, biogeochemical cycling and fluxes, food web structure and dynamics, ocean–atmosphere coupling, time-series ocean observations, environmental perturbations, and computational modeling.
Since its inception in 2004, the Marine Microbiology Initiative has engaged in:
- Fostering collaborations among marine microbial ecologists
- Enhancing the ability of researchers and engineers from a variety of disciplines to bring their expertise into the field of marine microbial ecology
- Supporting the next generation of marine microbial ecology researchers
- Providing cyberinfrastructure to support large metagenomic datasets and powerful analytical tools
- Supporting the creation of large amounts of publicly available DNA sequences and associated metadata
- Generating data for and developing computational ecosystem models
Outcomes for the Marine Microbiology Initiative are measured in several ways, including: creating new scientific knowledge; measuring the importance and impact of that new knowledge; producing community and organismal DNA, RNA and protein sequence data; training students and postdoctoral associates; assessing the adoption of ecosystem models by the marine microbiology research community; and monitoring the use of genome-enabled microbial sensors on ocean observing platforms.
The Marine Microbiology Initiative ultimately endeavors to catalyze and accelerate an enduring, transformative impact on the field of marine microbial ecology for current and future generations of research scientists.