Carbon neutrality is an essential strategy to cope with global warming. The basic approaches to achieve carbon neutralization include reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, increasing carbon sinks and producing environmentally sustainable and renewable alternatives to fossil energy sources. The ocean is the largest active carbon pool on Earth, with great potentials for carbon negative emissions. Marine carbon sequestration theory suggests that marine microorganisms play a key role in carbon neutrality, including absorption of atmospheric CO2, carbon sequestration and bioenergy production. Therefore, the integrated study, consisting of microbially driven carbon (C), nitrogen (N) cycling, metabolic enzymes/pathways and production of value added bioproducts, is very important to understand the mechanism of microbial carbon pump and guide carbon neutralization.
Microorganisms are the major contributor to marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) pool. For instance, marine picocyanobacteria contribute to global primary production, whereas heterotrophic microorganisms are the major driving force to convert labile dissolved organic carbon (LDOC) to recalcitrant DOC (RDOC). However, microbial population and composition of DOM in the ocean are highly diverse, thus little is known about the composition and fate of DOM, a result of interactions between microbial communities and DOM molecules. With recent advances in high-throughput sequencing and ultra-high resolution mass spectra, the composition of microbial communities and DOM can be characterized. However, at the ecological level, the relationship between the microbial population and DOM is yet to develop, and at the microbial cell level, metabolic processes or enzymes, which are responsible for DOM transformation (e.g., inorganic carbon to DOC, LDOC to RDOC/value added bioproducts), consequence of microbial carbon sequestration and microbial bioenergy storage, are still unclear. Therefore, in-depth understanding of marine microbial community responses to fluctuating DOM, as well as microbial metabolic process of DOM transformation and bioenergy generation is essential for the development of microbially mediated carbon neutrality.
This research topic focuses on the recent development of microbial transformation of DOM at the cell and ecological levels, and future research scopes for biotechnologies of microbially driven carbon neutrality. The research topic welcomes original research articles, review articles, short communications and case studies with the following themes:
1. Microbial community responses to fluctuating DOM (e.g., DOC, DON);
2. Microbial activities to change the composition of DOM;
3. Microbial metabolic processes/enzymes for DOM transformation (e.g., inorganic carbon fixation, nitrogen fixation, LDOC to RDOC);
4. Biotechnologies for increasing microbially driven carbon energy storage (e.g., PHA, lipid, ethanol);
5. Biotechnologies for reducing CO2 emissions and increasing carbon sinks.
Carbon neutrality is an essential strategy to cope with global warming. The basic approaches to achieve carbon neutralization include reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, increasing carbon sinks and producing environmentally sustainable and renewable alternatives to fossil energy sources. The ocean is the largest active carbon pool on Earth, with great potentials for carbon negative emissions. Marine carbon sequestration theory suggests that marine microorganisms play a key role in carbon neutrality, including absorption of atmospheric CO2, carbon sequestration and bioenergy production. Therefore, the integrated study, consisting of microbially driven carbon (C), nitrogen (N) cycling, metabolic enzymes/pathways and production of value added bioproducts, is very important to understand the mechanism of microbial carbon pump and guide carbon neutralization.
Microorganisms are the major contributor to marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) pool. For instance, marine picocyanobacteria contribute to global primary production, whereas heterotrophic microorganisms are the major driving force to convert labile dissolved organic carbon (LDOC) to recalcitrant DOC (RDOC). However, microbial population and composition of DOM in the ocean are highly diverse, thus little is known about the composition and fate of DOM, a result of interactions between microbial communities and DOM molecules. With recent advances in high-throughput sequencing and ultra-high resolution mass spectra, the composition of microbial communities and DOM can be characterized. However, at the ecological level, the relationship between the microbial population and DOM is yet to develop, and at the microbial cell level, metabolic processes or enzymes, which are responsible for DOM transformation (e.g., inorganic carbon to DOC, LDOC to RDOC/value added bioproducts), consequence of microbial carbon sequestration and microbial bioenergy storage, are still unclear. Therefore, in-depth understanding of marine microbial community responses to fluctuating DOM, as well as microbial metabolic process of DOM transformation and bioenergy generation is essential for the development of microbially mediated carbon neutrality.
This research topic focuses on the recent development of microbial transformation of DOM at the cell and ecological levels, and future research scopes for biotechnologies of microbially driven carbon neutrality. The research topic welcomes original research articles, review articles, short communications and case studies with the following themes:
1. Microbial community responses to fluctuating DOM (e.g., DOC, DON);
2. Microbial activities to change the composition of DOM;
3. Microbial metabolic processes/enzymes for DOM transformation (e.g., inorganic carbon fixation, nitrogen fixation, LDOC to RDOC);
4. Biotechnologies for increasing microbially driven carbon energy storage (e.g., PHA, lipid, ethanol);
5. Biotechnologies for reducing CO2 emissions and increasing carbon sinks.
