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SUMMARY:Plenary Lecture 15: Geomicrobial kinetics: bridging the gap betwee
 n laboratory and nature - Jin\, Q (University of Oregon)
DTSTART:20140912T090500Z
DTEND:20140912T094000Z
UID:TALK54194@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:Rates of natural microbes are a key parameter of theoretical a
 nd practical problems in environmental chemistry\, microbiology\, and biot
 echnology. Empirical models\, such as the Monod equation\, are standard to
 ols for predicting microbial rates in laboratory and industrial reactors. 
 But direct application of these models to natural environments often overe
 stimates the significance and extent of microbial processes by orders of m
 agnitude relative to field observations. Hence new theories and modeling a
 pproaches are required for quantifying microbial metabolism in natural env
 ironments and for simulating population dynamics of natural communities. T
 he new theory of geomicrobial kinetics must account for dramatic differenc
 es in growth conditions between laboratory reactors and natural environmen
 ts. For example\, the energy available in the environment limits the metab
 olism of natural microbes\, which can be described using the thermodynamic
  potential factor. According to this factor\, the thermodynamic control be
 comes negligible where the available energy is much larger than the energy
  saved by microbes. But for common anaerobic respiration of natural enviro
 nments\, the thermodynamic control is significant because the available en
 ergy is of the same order of magnitude as the saved energy. The new theory
  also needs to address (1) how microbial diversity controls the rates of m
 icrobial metabolism\; (2) what metabolic strategies microbes have to emplo
 y in natural environments and how these strategies impact microbial rates\
 ; and (3) how to integrate mechanisms and kinetics at different scales\, f
 rom subcellular scale of enzyme kinetics and cellular scale of microbial k
 inetics to the field scale of watersheds and aquifers and global scale of 
 element cycling. These questions represent current challenges of geomicrob
 ial kinetics\, and can be addressed by integrating the exciting advances i
 n genome-scale modeling\, microbial ecology\, and environmental chemistry.
 \n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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