Genome-Informed Trait Based Modeling of Microbial Communities in Soil and Subsurface Systems

The biogeochemical functioning of ecosystems is shaped in part by genomic information stored in the microbiome. Cultivation-independent approaches allow us to extract this information through reconstruction of thousands of genomes from a microbial population. Analysis of these genomes, in turn, gives an indication of the organisms present and their functional roles. However, metagenomic analyses can currently deliver thousands of different genomes that range in abundance/importance, requiring the identification and assimilation of key physiologies and metabolism to be represented as traits for successful simulation of biogeochemical processes in mathematical models.

In this presentation I will discuss our approaches to quantifying key traits of cultivated and uncultivated microbes and the incorporation of this information into genome-informed trait-based models that represent the diversity of microbial functional processes within a reactive transport framework. I will give examples of the use of this modeling approach to predict patterns of microbial succession and its biogeochemical basis. I will also discuss a path forward to simulating microbes at their native scale.

Speaker: Eoin Brodie, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs