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1 The Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution
2 The Center for Advanced Studies in the Space Life Sciences, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
For more than 3.5 billion years, microbes of untold diversity have dominated every corner of our biosphere. For example, the cyanobacteria Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus, with a global biomass of approximately 1 billion metric tons, are responsible for 10% to 50% of the ocean’s primary productivity. Microorganisms are also responsible for key processes in geochemical cycling, biodegradation, and the protection of entire ecosystems from environmental insult. Thus, they control global utilization of nitrogen through nitrogen fixation, nitrification, and nitrate reduction; and they drive the bulk of carbon, sulfur, iron, and manganese biogeochemical cycles. At higher trophic levels, rarely studied bacterial mutualists provide essential nutrients and other compounds to diverse plant and animal hosts, and thus have a pervasive impact on the distribution, productivity, and diversification of multicellular organisms. Therefore, although Earth’s early history teaches us that microbial life can thrive in diverse environments devoid of multicellular organisms, the continued survival of later evolving multicellular plants and animals is completely dependent upon interactions with microorganisms.
Although microorganisms have a central role in shaping planetary environments, little is known about how they function in consortia, i.e., extraordinarily diverse, complex, and highly organized communities. And even less is known about the responses of these microbial communities to cyclic and transient environmental shifts. Clearly, the activities of the varied microbes constituting a consortium must be coordinated, and these structured populations must also be able to detect and respond to their ever-changing environments; but we lack comprehensive descriptions of the biochemical and genetic mechanisms underlying these obligatory relationships. The control of microbial growth and biogeochemical activity in all ecosystems must include the coordinated expression of multiple genomes from different organisms. Moreover, such genome-genome interactions should scale from thousands of species of microbes that function within consortia to maintain or shape the environment, to relatively simple binary interactions between species (i.e., a symbiont or a pathogen and its host). In recent years, advances in molecular biology have revolutionized the life sciences. In the near future, microbial ecologists and evolutionary biologists will decipher the molecular language that coordinates the expression and evolution of microbial genomes and entire ecosystems.
This workshop—entitled Outcomes of Genome-Genome Interactions—derives from previous discussions between Mitchell Sogin and John Hobbie of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Andreas Teske of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and David Stahl of the University of Washington. The discussions were about how to link biogeochemical measurements with metabolic processes and microbial population structures existing in natural settings. This meeting is meant to start a continuing conversation among a variety of investigators—microbiologists, biogeochemists, ecosystem experts, molecular phylogeneticists, and molecular ecologists—who are united by their interest in complex microbial processes on Earth. The ultimate objective is to foster novel interdisciplinary studies in ecosystems biology and evolution that are relevant to the interests of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in fundamental space biology and the exploration of life beyond planet earth.
This workshop was sponsored by the Center for Advanced Studies in the Space Life Sciences (CASSLS) and the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution—both at the MBL. CASSLS was established in 1995 through a cooperative agreement between the MBL and the Life Sciences Division of NASA. The Center acts as an interface between NASA and the basic science community, promoting interactions and discussion in areas of mutual interest. The Josephine Bay Paul Center sponsors research that integrates the powerful tools of genome science, molecular phylogenetics, and molecular ecology. The aims are to advance our understanding of the relationships among living organisms, to quantify and assess biodiversity, and to identify molecular mechanisms of biomedical importance.
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