Daniel H Buckley Microbial Ecology and Genomics of Soil Communities

Soil Microbial Diversity

Genome Ecology

Publications

• The diversity and functional significance of non-cultivated diazotrophs in agroecosystems.
A remarkable diversity of non-cultivated diazotrophs exists in agricultural soils suggesting that current models of nitrogen-fixation, based on cultivated strains, may not adequately explain this process in these systems. We are working to identify and characterize novel

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free-living diazotrophs and their contributions to soil N-dynamics, examine how management decisions influence their diversity and metabolic function, determine if changes in community structure have functional significance, and whether these functional changes can be exploited in an agronomic context.

• Microbial Community Genomics in Terrestrial ecosystems: Linking Microbial Diversity to Ecosystem Function. Soil microbial communities are of central importance to the productivity and health of terrestrial ecosystems, and they impact atmospheric chemistry and global climate by influencing budgets of gases such as CO2, CO, CH4, H2, N2O, and NO.

Progress in understanding these communities has historically been limited by the fact that the majority of microorganisms in soil are recalcitrant to laboratory cultivation. Our lab is using environmental genomics to examine non-cultivated microorganisms in soils in order to shed light on the functional significance of these organisms in natural and managed environments.