The purpose of this team is to explore the Microbial Metabolome of Diverse Ecosystems. 

Resource availability has the potential to impact soil ecosystem functioning, regulate microbial life, drive microbe-microbe interactions, and control biogeochemical cycling. This effect is evident across various ecosystems, including arid regions, permafrost, and peatlands, where essential resources such as water, carbon, and nutrients are often limited or in flux. As climate change progresses, environmental shifts such as deeper droughts, permafrost thaw, and changes in peatland hydrology will further alter, and possibly transform, these ecosystems with a direct impact on community composition, function, and stability. 

The subject of how below-ground microbial communities acclimate and adapt to rapid environmental change across diverse ecosystems is not well explored. Furthermore, the relative roles of microbial functional diversity in driving the ecological and evolutionary responses of terrestrial ecosystems to current and future environmental change is understudied. It is therefore vital to incorporate knowledge of the microbial "unseen majority" if we are to understand how humans and other life forms on Earth can withstand predicted climate change.

Fortunately, the field of metabolomics is ready to radically reform our understanding of how changes in resource availability could influence microbiome functioning but it is, arguably, one of the greatest challenges yet in modern discovery. This is because the diversity of soil metabolites (of plant and microbial origin) far exceeds any other complexity on earth. 

In fact, less than 2% of spectra in an untargeted metabolomics experiment can be annotated. This means that the vast majority of information collected by metabolomics is "dark matter," chemical signatures that remain uncharacterized. **Thus, to assess microbiome responses to changes in resource availability across diverse ecosystems, the unmet need is to also develop and apply new computational solutions for better metabolite annotation and characterization.

The team will work on identifying novel biomarkers (metabolites) related to environmental changes under natural conditions and in response to changing conditions across various ecosystems. For example, we will study drought responses in arid environments, thaw cycles in permafrost, and hydrological changes in peatlands. Samples will be collected from representative sites of each ecosystem type over multiple seasons across five years. The data generated under this project will not only help build/improve predictive models of organismal responses to environmental changes but also inform solutions to critical societal challenges, including natural resource management and resilience to environmental change. This research will enable future mitigation plans that increase carbon sequestration and decrease the positive atmospheric feedbacks that would accelerate climate change across a range of crucial ecosystems.

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