Lochlan Breckenridge
Projet
Environmental Drivers of Survival of Arctic Trace Gas Oxidizing ProkaryotesMicrobial metabolisms involving the trace gasses H2, CO, and CH4 have recently been discovered to be important in low-nutrient environments. In deserts and in Antarctic soils, where water and organic depletion prevent phototrophs and many heterotrophs from thriving, trace-gas consuming microbes can be important primary producers. However, trace gas oxidizing microbes are not well studied in the Arctic. I intend to study the abundance, diversity, and levels of activity of trace-gas consuming microbes on Axel Heiberg Island (AHI) to determine how abundant trace gas oxidizers are in the Arctic, and how environmental factors such as moisture and organic carbon affect their distribution.
