title: Diversity, Productivity, and Stability of an Industrial Microbial Ecosystem.
abstract: Managing ecosystems to maintain biodiversity may be one approach to ensuring their dynamic stability, productivity, and delivery of vital services. The applicability of this approach to industrial ecosystems that harness the metabolic activities of microbes has been proposed but has never been tested at relevant scales. We used a tag-sequencing approach with bacterial small subunit rRNA (16S) genes and eukaryotic internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) to measuring the taxonomic composition and diversity of bacteria and eukaryotes in an open pond managed for bioenergy production by microalgae over a year. Periods of high eukaryotic diversity were associated with high and more-stable biomass productivity. In addition, bacterial diversity and eukaryotic diversity were inversely correlated over time, possibly due to their opposite responses to temperature. The results indicate that maintaining diverse communities may be essential to engineering stable and productive bioenergy ecosystems using microorganisms.
authors.affiliation: Computer Science and Engineering Department, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA dbeyter@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Doruk
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3644-5760
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beyter
authors.affiliation: Life Technologies, Carlsbad, California, USA.
authors.forename: Pei-Zhong
authors.initials: PZ
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Life Technologies, Carlsbad, California, USA.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.affiliation: Sapphire Energy, San Diego, California, USA.
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hoang
authors.affiliation: Sapphire Energy, San Diego, California, USA.
authors.forename: Damla
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bilgin
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA.
authors.forename: Yan Wei
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Life Technologies, Carlsbad, California, USA.
authors.forename: Todd C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Peterson
authors.affiliation: Division of Biological Sciences, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mayfield
authors.affiliation: Life Technologies, Carlsbad, California, USA.
authors.forename: Farzad
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Haerizadeh
authors.affiliation: Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Shurin
authors.affiliation: Computer Science and Engineering Department, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Vineet
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Bafna
authors.affiliation: Sapphire Energy, San Diego, California, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McBride
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development*; D058448:Biota; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D056890:Eukaryota / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development*; D007218:Industrial Microbiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014871:Water Microbiology
chemical_list: D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S