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Insect Ecosystem Contains Biofuel Clues1 min read

by ESD News and Events on July 25, 2014

Bioenergy Program Ecology Department Environmental and Biological Systems Sciences Program Area Research Highlight

Source:  Javier Ceja-Navarro and Dan Hawkes

Javier_garyIn forest ecosystems, coarse, woody debris is an important biomass pool within which numerous groups of insects have evolved. These ecologically important insects represent useful natural analogs for biomass-to-biofuel conversion.

Using a range of molecular approaches combined with microelectrode measurements of oxygen, a team of ecologists led by ESD’s Javier Ceja-Navarro (and including Gary Andersen, Ulas Karaoz, and Eoin Brodie) characterized the gut microbiome and physiology of Odontotaenius disjunctus, a wood-feeding beetle native to the eastern United States. This study found not only a compartmentalized microbiome in this beetle digestive tract, but also sharp oxygen gradients that may permit bothaerobic and anaerobic metabolism to occur within the same regions in close proximity. This work also provided evidence for the microbial fixation of nitrogen, which is essential for insect subsistence on woody biomass.

Insect

(a) Dorsal view of a dissected passalid beetle showing the gut arrangement within the abdominal cavity. (b) Dissected beetle gut showing entire gut removed and extended.

To read more, go to: http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/v8/n1/full/ismej2013134a.html

Citation: Ceja-Navarro, J. A., N.H. Nguyen, U. Karaoz, S.R. Gross, D.J. Herman, G.L. Andersen, T.D. Bruns, J. Pett-Ridge, M. Blackwell, and E.L. Brodie (2014), Compartmentalized microbial composition, oxygen gradients and nitrogen fixation in the gut of Odontotaenius disjunctus. ISME Journal, 8, 6-18; PMID: 23985746; DOI: 10.1038/ismej.2013.134.

Funding: BER, SS SFA

News & Events

EGD Postdoc Fellow Receives Young Researcher Presenter Award1 min read

January 21, 2021

Pramod Bhuvankar, an EGD postdoctoral fellow working with research scientist Abdullah Cihan, received a Young Researcher Presenter Award during the 2020 Computational Methods in Water Resources conference in December. His presentation, “Pore-scale simulations of permeability decline in porous media due to fines migration,” described a pore-scale CFD study of clay mobilization in porous media due…

Berkeley Lab Partners with International Collaborators in Geothermal Energy Research1 min read

January 20, 2021

  Scientists from the Energy Geosciences Division have begun working with European partners on three new geothermal research projects through the Department of Energy’s membership in GEOTHERMICA, a transnational consortium that combines the in-country financial resources and research expertise of 15 participating countries to demonstrate and validate novel concepts in geothermal energy use. This marks the…

EESA Senior Scientist Talks Earthquake Building Resilience1 min read

Berkeley Lab senior scientist David McCallen leads a subproject called Earthquake Sim, or EQSIM, for the DOE’s Energy Exascale Computing Project. He is also professor and director of the Center for Civil Engineering Earthquake Research in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. McCallen recently spoke with Scott Gibson of…

EESA Scientist Coauthors New Comprehensive Guide on Removing CO2 from the Atmosphere2 min read

January 18, 2021

Berkeley Lab researchers are working on ways to sequester more carbon in soil, including through agricultural practices. (Credit: Berkeley Lab) Scientists say that any serious plan to address climate change should include carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies and policies, which makes the newly launched CDR Primer an especially vital resource, says Berkeley Lab scientist Margaret Torn, one…

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