The little engines that could: Ecology and evolution of miniature microbial

Abstract

Bacteria are the cornerstone of all ecosystems because they perform vital “ecosystem services”. In nature, bacteria drive the major biogeochemical cycles and are the primary means by which energy is transferred to higher trophic levels. Bacteria are also of vital importance from an economic perspective: they detoxify sewage and manufacture beneficial drugs and biofuels. However, understanding how bacterial communities influence ecosystem services is hampered by the extraordinary complexity of these communities, with hundreds of interacting species influencing every ecosystem service. Aside from a few economically important species, the natural history and ecology of most bacterial species is poorly described, making it difficult to make any predictions about how ecosystem services should respond to changes in bacterial community composition.

Professor Thomas Bell's research has focused on understanding the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of bacteria in natural environments using a combination of field experiments and laboratory studies. His research has focused particularly on using 'natural microecosystems' for identifying the general principles of microbial ecology. By creating miniature worlds (microcosms) in the laboratory, he has shown how it is possible to start to piece together the way these complex communities operate.

In this lecture, Prof Bell will outline two approaches for understanding how interactions among bacterial species change over time, and how these shifting interactions alter ecosystem processes. First, he will show how the construction of synthetic communities of bacteria allows tracking of inter-specific interactions. Second, he will show how manipulations of intact 'wild' microbiomes can be used to identify links between community structure and ecosystem functioning. He will illustrate how these approaches can be used in a variety of applications, including in agriculture, in climate change research, and in energy production.

Biography

Professor Thomas Bell is Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Holobiont and is co-director of the Imperial Microbiome Network. He joined Imperial College as a Lecturer in 2011, and concurrently held a Royal Society University Research Fellow (2010-2018). He was previously a Departmental Lecturer at the University of Oxford (2005-2010) and Beale Tutorial Fellow at St Hilda's College (University of Oxford, 2008-2011). Prof Bell holds a BSc (Hons) in Biology from McGill University (Canada), an MSc in Zoology from the University of British Columbia (Canada), and a D. Phil. in Zoology from the University of Oxford.

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