Microorganisms from all three domains of life (Bacteria, Eukarya and Archaea) play critical roles in nature and their activities influence agriculture, forestry and freshwater management in multiple ways.

Pathogenic microorganisms affect productivity of crops, but microorganisms also carry out processes critical for ecosystem functioning and sustainability; e.g. degradation of pollutants and nutrient recycling. In addition, microorganisms may aid our efforts to both exploit and manage natural resources.

The central idea of the UMC is that it is critical to understand the dynamics, composition and function of natural microbial communities in order to manage ecosystems in a sustainable way.

Our strategy to accomplish this is to gather researchers in microbiology, biochemistry, molecular recognition tools and microfluidic detection systems around three strategic areas that are critical for linking microbial communities to ecosystem-scale processes and the state of the environment:

(i) Environmental control of microbial community composition

(ii) Linking population identity with function in the environment

(iii) Ecology of microbial functional guilds

These strategic areas will rely on a combination of existing tools, and novel tools to be developed within the project, to study microbial communities and their ecosystem impact.

The simultaneous assessment of community structure and ecological function, including the identification of specific populations performing environmentally relevant processes, is still in its infancy. The novel tools developed in the project will enable microbial communities and functions to be assessed in the environment, in ways that are not currently possible.