Revealing the soil microbial activity on the methane cycling with forest conversion through isotopic labeling: part II

Abstract

Amazonian soils are being converted through history into Pasture and other agricultural lands. Changes in soil coverage and management drives modifications in chemical and physical soil attributes which influences the microbiota structure and biological roles. Studies of biology of green house gases from tropical lands are not conclusive and the magnitude of changes in Amazon Forest can impact considerably biochemical cycles. The doctoral project under fellowship FAPESP 2015/12282-6 aims to identify the microbiota which acts on methane cycling and understand their dynamics along changes in soil parameters with multidimensional approaches through methane atmosphere microcosms for soil enrichment in methanotrophs and methanogens populations to enhance its information. The project is composed by two studies: Study I - Access the microbiota which metabolizes methane in tropical soils with forest transition through advanced bioinformatics and statistics analyses from metadata generated by metagenomics (metaG) and metatranscriptomics (metaT) of 8 days incubation with 12CH4. Nucleic acids were already sent to shotgun sequencing and at the moment we are waiting for the generation of metadata. Study II - Access the microbiota which uses derivates of 13C in the trophic chain, where advanced bioinformatics and statistics analyses are required as well for metadata generated by metagenomics (metaG) from 15 days incubation with 12CH4 and 13CH4 followed by Stable Isotope Probing (SIP) and GC fractionation (GCfrac) that separates labeled and GC rich DNA, respectively, from the rest of community. Now DNA is ready to follow downstream techniques. Research internship abroad proposal - The development of isopycnic density centrifugation techniques that encompass SIP and GCfrac for metaG in 8 months, which techniques are at the scopes of Prof. Dr. Jorge L. M. Rodrigues, from University of California Davis (CA, USA) (Sequential BEPE Part I). The impossibility to develop advanced statistical analysis for metadata correlations, a formal introduction to this faculty in 2 months will be possible with Prof. Dr. Brendan J. M. Bohannan, from University of Oregon (OR, USA)(Sequential BEPE Part II), who has skills on mathematical modeling for study the fundamental drivers of biodiversity of microorganisms. In addition, both institutions will provide support to develop standard bioinformatics and statistics pipelines for metadata analyses from previous work in Brazil and for novel data to be produced in USA. (AU)