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Project

Study of microbial interaction networks among heterotrophic bacteria from river waters

Rivers represent aquatic ecosystems among the most suffering from anthropogenic activities, by their regular and important exposure to massive inputs of organic matter and chemical pollutants. Bacteria play a key role in rivers’ ‘self-purification’ by their action of mineralization of organic matter and export of carbon to the atmosphere, and besides they form an important trophic link as they are located at the bottom of the food chain. However, the studies conducted till then only focus on ecological characterization of river waters at time t (field studies) or are limited to a small number of species (lab studies), and in both cases they don’t lead to a fine understanding of the intrinsic functioning of the microbiome (the role of each species and how they interact with themselves). The purpose of this thesis will be therefore to study the microbial interactions amongst a simplified model community (heterotrophic bacteria of a river water) and the way the network builds itself according to the (a)biotic parameters of the environment. In order to do that, we will set an experimental device allowing us to incubate 20 bacterial strains in an artificial river water. The thesis project will run through three periods: (i) studying the way the community builds itself without disturbances and determine, using mathematical tools, the topology of the interactions network; (ii) validating the interactions predicted before by creating co-cultures between strain pairs or by eliminating from the environment the most connected strains; (iii) observing the way the community reacts to environmental disturbances, applied in a punctual and random way. In the end of the project, we hope being able to predict the behavior of this community according to the environmental conditions.

Date:9 May 2018 →  17 Nov 2023
Keywords:microbiology, microbial communities, microbial interactions, microbial networks, river microbial communities
Disciplines:Microbiology, Systems biology, Laboratory medicine, Biomaterials engineering, Biological system engineering, Biomechanical engineering, Other (bio)medical engineering, Environmental engineering and biotechnology, Industrial biotechnology, Other biotechnology, bio-engineering and biosystem engineering, Immunology
Project type:PhD project