Growing algae in wastewater provides sustainable biofuels production without competing with agriculture for land, and offers nutrient remediation services for wastewater treatment. The researchers have been growing naturally-occurring filamentous algal communities in wastewater but want to know more about the bacteria found in these communities. The team is interested in questions such as how these…

The study of lignocellulose degradation is an important field of research due to its possible application in biofuel production. Fungi, specifically the Agaricomycetes, are notably good at breaking down the polymers in wood into simple sugars. To date, over 75 genomes of Agaricomycetes have been sequenced, predominantly by the DOE JGI. However, much remains to…

The annual mean temperatures in boreal and arctic ecosystems in the past 50 years have increased at rates greater than the global mean. Additionally, these ecosystems contain large stores of soil organic carbon—that are trapped for a decade or longer. Rising global temperatures raise concerns about the fate of the stored carbon. In this project,…

The powdery mildew fungi are one of the most ubiquitous plant pathogen groups worldwide. Powdery mildews likely share features with beneficial fungi in that they must beable to minimize host damage and defense activation while manipulating hosts into providing nutrients. The project focuses on the genomes of 11 powdery mildews, including 3 species that infect…

The genus Colletotrichum contains at least 150 species divided into nine major clades, and one of the largest is the Colletotrichum acutatum species complex (CAs). Species belonging to this complex are associated with diseases that infect a wide diversity of crop plants worldwide, and some insects as well. Despite being one of the largest lineages…

Sugarcane and Miscanthus are closely related to the DOE JGI Flagship plant Sorghum and comprise the Andropogoneae, a tribe of highly productive grasses prominent in energy production. Miscanthus is a nascent DOE JGI flagship, pending completion of a reference genome draft. Sugarcanes and Miscanthus are both polyploids with complex genomes, which has limited the use of modern,…

Populus trichocarpa was the first tree species whose whole genome was sequenced, assembled and annotated by the DOE JGI for bioenergy applications. This project has two major aims: 1) document the evolutionary process (i.e., the accumulation of mutations) that a single poplar tree undergoes during its lifetime; and, 2) examine the hypothesis that perennial plants…

River and ocean end members are heavily populated areas subjected to powerful physical forces and vulnerable to the impacts of human activity and climate change. Estuaries buffer the ocean from the effects of land loads of reactive nitrogen, but can also enhance microbial production of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen dioxide. This…

Coral reefs are threatened tropical marine ecosystems whose fundamental unit is the reef building coral. A coral colony is a complex community comprised of both the coral host and its associated microbiome, the coral holobiont. The coral microbiome is important in shaping host health but its metabolic contribution to the coral holobiont is poorly understood,…