While the biodiversity ecosystem functioning (BEF) debate has considerably advanced macroorganismic and theoretical ecology, a central question remains whether (and how) the BEF coupling applies to the microbial world. This is of immense ecological and societal relevance because of the central role of microorganisms in natural and engineered ecosystems. This proposal aims at studying the relationship between biofilm biodiversity and its large-scale ecosystem consequences. Biofilms are matrix-enclosed communities that represent the dominant form of microbial life in most aqueous ecosystems, yet their understanding significantly lags behind their planktonic counterparts. We will place biofilm research in an explicitly spatial context by recruiting conceptual knowledge from landscape ecology. Dialoguing between modelling and experiments, this will allow us to develop a multi-scale computational model that can quantify the interplay between biofilm invasibility and diversity, hydrodynamic mixing and quorum sensing over a range of different spatial scales. We will start at small spatial scales (<0.01 ( community we the will random by m) systematically simplest up communication. assumption unaffected scale mixing assembly completely and source is move a homogeneous then from with that in> 1000 m) by successively adding complexity from biofilm surface topography, dispersal, hydrodynamics and quorum sensing, and by comparing model predictions with the experimental observations. Ultimately, we will link nitrifier biodiversity in streams to nitrogen cycling and export to larger downstream ecosystems. COMIX will significantly contribute to bridge the conceptual gap that has developed between microbiology and ecology, advance mathematical modelling in microbial ecology across scales, and will be a unique opportunity to tailor and, most importantly, test theories from landscape and invasion ecology on microbial terrain.
Project leader :
Dr. Tom Battin
Dept of Limnology
Institute of Ecology and Conservation Biology
University of Vienna
1090 Vienna Austria
Phone:+43 1 4277 54350
Fax:+43 1 4277 9542
Principal Investigators:
Dr. Holger Daims, University of Vienna, AT
Dr. Andrea Butturini, CSIC, ES
Dr. Eugenia Marti, CSIC, ES
Prof. Leo Eberl, University of Zürich, CH
Dr. Thomas Curtis, University of Newcastle, UK
Prof. Ian Head, University of Newcastle, UK
Dr. William Sloan, University of Glasgow, UK
Associated Group:
Dr. Louis Kaplan, Stroud Water Research Center, US
Dr. Denis Newbold, Stroud Water Research Center, US
Dr. Aaron Packman, Northwestern University Evanston, US
