2020 ESA Annual Meeting (August 3 - 6)

OOS 7 - Linking Climate, Microbial Adaptation, and Ecosystem Processes

Organizer:
Moira Hough
Co-organizers:
Adriana L. Romero-Olivares and Elsa Abs
Microbes mediate key ecosystem processes such as carbon and nutrient cycling. As such, microbes play a major role in determining how these processes will alter in response to climate change. But as climate changes, microbial influences on ecosystem processes will vary depending on both community and evolutionary dynamics. Thus, assessing and modeling the adaptive response of microbes to changing environments remains a major challenge. Attempting to do so raises questions such as: What is the relative importance of community versus evolutionary dynamics in microbial response to environmental change? How can we model microbial evolutionary processes? To what degree are key functional genes phylogenetically conserved? At what phylogenetic level should microbial communities be measured and modeled? How can we best measure and predict aggregate microbial community function and change? In this session, we explore these questions. We include investigations in rapid evolution, community assembly, trait-based models, and eco-evolutionary dynamics to link climate, microbial community, and ecosystem processes. Specifically, Ed Hall and Amy Zanne present on the ecology of microbial communities and how these respond to climate change. They link microbial community composition and microbial traits to environmental changes. Their research is helping us to better understand how microbial communities shift in response to environmental change and how this in turn affects ecosystem processes. Alejandra Rodriguez-Verdugo and Alexander Chase speak on the evolution of microbes in the laboratory and the field. Their research shows microbes undergo rapid evolution in response to interactions with other microbes. Finally, Elsa Abs and Adriana L. Romero-Olivares, link the process of ecology and evolution through their research on eco-evolutionary dynamics by modelling and empirical work, respectively. Altogether, this session shows cutting edge research and brings together scientists from diverse perspectives with the goal of generating new ideas as to how to move forward “linking climate, microbial evolution, and ecosystem processes”.
How aquatic microbiomes respond to climate change
Ed Hall, Colorado State University
Rapid evolution destabilizes species interactions in a fluctuating environment
Alejandra Rodriguez Verdugo, UC Irvine, ETH Zürich, Eawag; Martin Ackermann, ETH Zürich, Eawag
Evolutionary responses of Curtobacterium to a climate gradient
Alexander Chase, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Claudia Weihe, University of California, Irvine; Jennifer B.H. Martiny, University of California, Irvine
Fungal adaptation to simulated nitrogen deposition and implications for carbon cycling.
Adriana L. Romero-Olivares, University of New Hampshire; Anne Pringle, Harvard University; Serita Frey, University of New Hampshire