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SUMMARY:Interspecies interactions determine growth dynamics of biopolymer 
 degrading populations in microbial communities. - Glen Dsouza (ETH Zürich
 )
DTSTART:20221011T133000Z
DTEND:20221011T135000Z
UID:TALK179333@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Microbial communities perform essential ecosystem functions su
 ch as the remineralization of organic carbon that exists as biopolymers. T
 hese communities are composed of biopolymer degraders\, which harbor enzym
 es that can break down polymers into constituent oligo- or monomeric forms
 . The released nutrients not only allow degraders to grow\, but also promo
 te the assembly of &nbsp\;communities of cells that either consume the bre
 akdown products\, i.e.\, exploiters\, or consume metabolites released by t
 he degraders\, i.e. scavengers. It is currently not clear how such reminer
 alizing communities assemble at the microscale &ndash\; how interactions b
 etween the different guilds influences their growth and migration\, and he
 nce the evolution of the community composition and its activity at differe
 nt points of time. Here we address this knowledge gap by studying marine m
 icrobial communities that grow on the abundant marine biopolymer alginate 
 using a combination of batch growth assays and microfluidics coupled to ti
 me-lapse microscopy to quantitatively investigate growth and movement of s
 ingle cells. We find that the presence of exploiters decreases dispersal a
 nd hence increases group formation of degraders. In contrast\, the presenc
 e of scavengers induced increased dispersal in degrader cells. In general\
 , the presence of cross-feeders slowed down the growth of degrader cells w
 ithin microbial communities but led to an increase in the total activity o
 f degradative enzymes production by the degraders. Our findings reveal tha
 t ecological interactions within microbial communities that grow on natura
 l carbon biopolymers can have functional consequences on the remineralizat
 ion of organic carbon.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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