How Microbiomes Can Help Us Deal with Climate Change | Steven Allison | TEDxUCIrvine
Summary
TLDRThis script explores the vital role of microbes in maintaining planetary health and their potential in addressing climate change. Microbes, though often overlooked, are Earth's most adaptable inhabitants and can thrive in extreme conditions. They contribute to the human microbiome, aid in decomposition, and may offer solutions to agricultural challenges and carbon sequestration. The script highlights the resilience and adaptability of microbiomes, suggesting they could be key to mitigating the impacts of climate change.
Takeaways
- 🌍 Microbes are ubiquitous and play a crucial role in maintaining planetary chemical cycles.
- 🌡️ Bacterial mats in Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring demonstrate microbes' ability to thrive in extreme conditions like near-boiling temperatures.
- 🌱 Humans are impacting the climate by emitting greenhouse gases, but microbes could potentially mitigate this through their adaptability and diversity.
- 🤧 The majority of microbes are not harmful; in fact, most are beneficial to human health, forming the human microbiome.
- 🌊 Microbiomes, like those in the ocean performed by cyanobacteria, are essential for producing the planet's breathable oxygen.
- 🌱 Soil microbiomes are as important as those in the human body or the ocean, acting as the planet's 'skin' and supporting plant life.
- 🌾 Agricultural practices can leverage symbiotic fungi to help crops withstand climate stress and ensure food security.
- 🌿 Microbes are involved in decomposition, a vital recycling process that converts dead organic matter into nutrients for new life.
- 🚀 Researchers are exploring how to harness microbial decomposition to produce sustainable biofuels, contributing to climate solutions.
- 🔬 Microbes' rapid evolution and genetic diversity could help them adapt to climate change, maintaining their ecological functions.
- 🏺 Soil acts as a 'carbon bank,' with microbes playing a role in carbon sequestration, which can contribute to healthier soil and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Q & A
What role do microbes play in the environment, as discussed in the script?
-Microbes are essential for maintaining planetary chemical cycles, supporting the health of ecosystems, and performing functions such as decomposition, nutrient cycling, and soil formation. They help balance the Earth's systems and contribute to climate regulation.
How do microbes contribute to the process of photosynthesis in the ocean?
-Cyanobacteria, a type of microbe in the ocean, carry out photosynthesis and produce a large fraction of the planet's breathable oxygen. Their green color is so prominent that it can be seen from space via satellites.
What is the human microbiome, and why is it important?
-The human microbiome consists of trillions of bacteria, fungi, and viruses living in and on our bodies. These microbes are crucial for digestion, disease prevention, and even influencing aspects like mate selection. Despite the common association of microbes with pathogens, less than 1% are harmful.
How do soil microbiomes contribute to agriculture, especially in the context of climate change?
-Soil microbiomes, including symbiotic fungi like mycorrhizae, help plants cope with stress from climate change by providing essential water and nutrients. This relationship improves crop yields and supports food security, particularly in the face of heat waves and droughts.
What potential solutions are being explored to harness microbes for addressing climate change?
-Researchers are exploring ways to use microbes for sustainable biofuel production, enhancing soil carbon sequestration, and supporting plant health under changing climate conditions. Microbes' ability to evolve and adapt quickly is seen as a key asset in mitigating climate change impacts.
What surprising result did the ecologist find when studying microbiomes' adaptability to different climates?
-The ecologist found that microbiomes from cooler climates, when moved to warmer and drier environments, were almost unfazed by the dramatic climate differences. They continued to decompose dead grass effectively, suggesting that microbiomes can adapt to significant environmental changes.
How do soil microbes contribute to carbon sequestration, and why is this important?
-Soil microbes contribute to carbon sequestration by producing biofilms that help stabilize soil and by decomposing organic matter into complex chemicals that can be stored in the soil for long periods. This process reduces greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere, making soil a critical component in combating climate change.
What are biofilms, and what role do they play in soil health?
-Biofilms are sticky substances produced by soil bacteria and fungi that help bind soil particles together, preventing erosion and improving water retention. They also play a significant role in carbon sequestration, as the complex chemicals in biofilms can be stored in the soil for long periods.
Why is the study of microbial decomposition important for future sustainability?
-Understanding microbial decomposition is crucial for developing sustainable biofuels and ensuring that nutrient recycling continues under changing climate conditions. By harnessing microbial processes, we can address issues like food security and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
What challenges do scientists face in understanding and leveraging microbiomes for environmental solutions?
-The complexity of microbiomes, with their vast diversity and intricate interactions, presents a significant challenge for scientists. While they offer immense potential for solving global problems, fully understanding and harnessing this potential requires further research and advanced techniques like DNA sequencing.
Outlines
🌡️ Microbes: Earth's Adaptable Inhabitants
This paragraph introduces the ubiquitous presence of microbes in various environments, including extreme conditions like Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring. It emphasizes the importance of microbes in maintaining planetary chemical cycles and their potential role in addressing climate change. The paragraph also dispels common misconceptions about microbes being solely pathogenic, highlighting the vast majority's beneficial nature to human health and the environment. The human microbiome is mentioned as an example of how these microorganisms aid in digestion, disease protection, and even mate selection. The concept of microbiomes in different environments, such as oceans and soils, is introduced, underscoring their critical role in planetary health.
🌱 Harnessing Microbes for Climate Resilience
The second paragraph delves into the adaptability of microbes and their evolutionary capabilities, which could be harnessed to mitigate the effects of climate change. It discusses the role of microbes in agricultural resilience, particularly through symbiotic relationships with fungi like mycorrhizae, which can help plants withstand heat waves and droughts. The paragraph also touches on the importance of soil microbes in decomposition and nutrient recycling, which is vital for sustaining life on Earth. The potential of microbes in producing sustainable biofuels and their role in soil carbon sequestration are highlighted as part of the climate solution. The adaptability of microbes is further explored through experiments showing their ability to survive in drastically different climates, suggesting their potential in evolving to cope with climate change.
🌿 The Role of Microbes in a Sustainable Future
The final paragraph focuses on the broader implications of microbes in building a sustainable future. It discusses the role of microbes in creating healthy soil through biofilm formation, which helps in soil erosion resistance and water retention for plants. The significance of microbes in carbon sequestration is emphasized, as their cellular structures can store carbon for extended periods, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The paragraph concludes by acknowledging the challenges of understanding complex microbiomes and the need for further research to leverage their potential in addressing climate change. It ends on a hopeful note, suggesting that with the right research, microbiomes could become a significant part of the solution to climate change.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Microbes
💡Grand Prismatic Spring
💡Human Microbiome
💡Cyanobacteria
💡Mycorrhizae
💡Decomposition
💡Biofuels
💡Climate Change
💡Biofilms
💡Genome
💡Adaptability
Highlights
Microbes are present everywhere, including air, oceans, soil, and our bodies, and play a crucial role in maintaining planetary chemical cycles.
Bacterial mats in Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring demonstrate microbes' ability to thrive in extreme conditions like near-boiling temperatures.
Despite the climate impact of human activities, microbes have the potential to assist in climate change mitigation due to their adaptability.
The majority of microbes are not pathogenic; instead, they are beneficial, with more microbes than human cells in our bodies aiding digestion and disease protection.
The human microbiome is a critical assemblage of microbes that contribute to our health, similar to microbiomes in other environments.
Cyanobacteria in the ocean perform photosynthesis, providing a significant portion of the planet's oxygen and being visible from space.
Soil microbiomes are as important as human or ocean microbiomes, acting as the planet's skin and providing nutrients for plant growth.
Soil microbiomes' diversity, revealed through DNA sequencing, offers potential solutions to global issues like climate change and food insecurity.
Mycorrhizal fungi can be used to alleviate stress on crops from climate change by enhancing water and nutrient uptake.
Beneficial fungi can also aid in the restoration of degraded soil and the recolonization of native plants.
Soil microbes are essential for decomposition, a biological recycling process that converts dead organic matter into nutrients.
Researchers are exploring the use of microbial decomposition to produce sustainable biofuels from plant materials.
Climate change may affect microbial recycling, potentially altering decomposition rates and greenhouse gas emissions.
Microbes' rapid evolution and adaptability could help them adjust to climate change, maintaining essential ecological functions.
Experiments with microbiomes from various habitats show their resilience and ability to adapt to different climate conditions.
Soil microbiomes contribute to soil health by forming biofilms that improve soil structure and carbon sequestration.
Microbes can sequester carbon in their cell walls, effectively locking away carbon for long periods, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The potential of microbiomes to address climate change is significant, though understanding their complexity remains a scientific challenge.
Despite the challenges, leveraging microbiome diversity could be key to developing solutions for climate change mitigation.
Transcripts
microbes
are everywhere they live in the air the
ocean
the soil and on our bodies lots of them
but before you reach for the hand
sanitizer take a look
at these beautiful bacterial mats in
yellowstone's grand prismatic spring
they're absolutely amazing because
they've somehow figured out how to grow
happily
at near boiling temperatures ever since
life on earth began
probably in a place like this microbes
have kept planetary chemical cycles in
balance
today humans are altering that balance
and changing the climate
by emitting greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere but microbes might be able to
help us with our climate problem after
all
microbes are earth's original and most
adaptable inhabitants
now i know that not everyone is so
enamored with microbes
my biology students tell me that they
usually think of pathogen when they hear
the word microbe
and i know we're in the middle of a
global viral pandemic
but you should keep in mind that far
less than one percent of microbial
diversity
is actually pathogenic to humans in fact
most of the microbes we encounter are
beneficial
there are trillions of bacteria fungi
and viruses living
in and on us right now more of them than
human cells in the body
they help us digest our food protect us
from disease
and maybe even choose our mates
microbiologists call this assemblage of
tiny interlopers
the human microbiome we now know
that there are microbiomes in basically
every environment
in the same way that they help our human
bodies stay healthy
microbiomes in water soil and air are
critical for planetary health
for example cyanobacteria in the ocean
carry out photosynthesis and provide a
large fraction of the planet's
breathable oxygen
even though they're tiny their green
color can be seen from outer space
with satellites they may be harder to
see
but microbiomes in the soil are just as
important as the human or ocean
microbiome
i think about soil as a skin for the
planet that provides nutrients to
sustain crops and other plants
as an ecologist and climate scientist
i've been studying the microbes that
live in soil for 20 years now
just like we've seen with the human
microbiome cutting edge techniques in
molecular biology
especially dna sequencing show that soil
microbiomes are extremely diverse in
their genes
and life cycles scientists are starting
to figure
out how we can harness the diversity of
these often invisible
organisms to solve global problems like
climate change and food insecurity
take agricultural crops for example with
climate change causing more frequent
heat waves and droughts
crop plants may become stressed reducing
yields and threatening food security
but microbes can help there are
symbiotic
fungi called mycorrhizae that grow out
from plant roots
and into the soil where they collect
water and nutrients
then the plant and its symbiotic fungus
make a trade
the fungus sends water and nutrients
into the plant roots
and the plant pays back the fungus with
sugars from photosynthesis
to reduce stress on plants from climate
change farmers can inoculate the soil
with these beneficial fungi
land managers are also starting to use
the same approach
to help native plants recolonize
degraded soil during habitat restoration
so the next time you support an
environmental cause
maybe through a non-profit donation or
volunteer work remember
soil microbes need conservation too
the planet also relies on soil
microbiomes for other essential services
have you ever thought about what happens
to living things like these leaves
mosses and mushrooms when they die i'm
not talking about an existential crisis
i'm talking about microbial
decomposition
think about it like a type of biological
recycling practiced by very diligent
microbes
they take dead bodies and turn them into
useful nutrients
without this essential service life on
earth would grind
to a halt because dead stuff would pile
up depriving the next generation of life
forms
of the raw materials needed for growth
hundreds of researchers funded by the us
department of energy
are even trying to figure out how to
co-opt microbial decomposition
to produce sustainable biofuels from
wood grasses and other plant materials
fuels derived from plants and microbes
are part of the climate solution
because they don't rely on fossil carbon
sources like coal and oil
at the same time ecologists like me are
very concerned about how climate change
might affect microbial recycling in the
environment
a warming climate might speed up the
process and release more greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere
a drier climate might slow down the
microbes and leave plants starved for
essential nutrients
fortunately there is reason for hope
microbes are
super adaptable because they can evolve
very quickly
for example you may have heard of
pathogenic bacteria like staph
evolving antibiotic resistance of course
that's bad for us
but the same evolutionary process could
also help microbes adapt to
climate change which is good after all
microbes evolved
long ago to survive extreme conditions
like the hot springs of yellowstone
just like our human cells each microbial
cell contains a genome
and just like our genomes microbial
genomes contain
genes or dna sequences with instructions
for growth and survival
my colleagues and i have identified
genes that allow bacteria and fungi to
survive drought
and decompose dead plant material we're
currently doing experiments to see how
fast these genes evolve
and what kinds of genetic changes make
bacteria and fungi
more resistant to drought some of our
prior research
shows that microbes have the potential
to deal with climate change
microbiomes and the services they
provide could cope not just by evolving
but also by shifting around the dominant
species of microbes
microbiomes are so diverse that even if
some of the species die out with climate
change
others might survive and take their
place allowing nature's recycling to
continue
to test this idea my colleagues and i
designed special cages to contain
microbiomes from different habitats in
southern california
we sampled microbiomes from places
ranging from forested mountain tops
to hot deserts each cage contained a
microbiome from one of these places
along with sterilized dead grass for the
microbes to use as a food source
we then put the cages back into the
different habitats
so that the microbiomes experienced
pretty dramatic changes in climate
we expected that the microbes from the
cooler places would die out
when we moved them to the warm places
like the hot desert
and they would lose their ability to
consume and recycle the nutrients in the
dead grass material
but when we looked at the results i was
really shocked
the microbiomes were almost unfazed by
this massive climate difference
there were some changes in the dominant
species but mountaintop microbes
decomposed dead grass just as well as
desert microbiomes
in the hot dry climate this result tells
us that microbiomes have the ability to
evolve
and shift to deal with really dramatic
climate changes
another way that soil microbiomes can be
part of the climate change solution
is by building healthy soil many soil
bacteria and fungi
ooze out sticky chemicals to glue
themselves onto soil surfaces
the glue and the microbes form these
biofilms that hold soil particles
together
this helps the soil resist erosion and
hold more water that's available for
plants
microbes in their biofilms also play a
big role in soil carbon sequestration
many forms of carbon from plants like
sugars don't last long in the soil
because they're food for many organisms
including the microbes
but micro bodies and biofilms are made
up of complex chemicals
for example many microbes build cell
walls for protection
so the wall material has to be resistant
to biochemical attack
when the microbes die their corpses
especially those cell walls
can stick around for a really long time
maybe even
thousands of years in this way
soil acts a lot like a bank vault for
carbon
more carbon in the bank means healthier
soil and
less greenhouse gas buildup in the
atmosphere
microbes are sort of like the federal
reserve they can take cash
off the street in the form of these
plant sugars and lock it away in a
chemical vault
for long-term storage with the signs of
climate change becoming more and more
obvious
every day we need to figure out how to
adapt for sure some scary outcomes like
emerging microbial diseases
are definitely something we need to plan
for but microbes can be a part of the
climate solution
if we figure out how to leverage all
that microbiome diversity
to be honest though making sense out of
complex microbiomes is still a
big scientific challenge their
complexity is both a blessing
and a curse we're only beginning to
understand all the strange and wonderful
microbial lifestyles
that have been evolving since the
origins of life on earth
this digital artwork called microbes
reimagined
does a great job of capturing that sense
of mystery
but one thing we do know for sure is
that microbes are
not just pathogens our lives literally
depend on them
so next time you take a breath outside
imagine
all those oxygen spewing cyanobacteria
floating around in the ocean
and when the time comes and you draw in
that last and final breath
take comfort in knowing that soil
microbes will be there
to turn your body into useful nutrients
even as we enjoy these benefits of
microbiomes climate
change remains a potentially existential
threat to our well-being
but dangerous climate change is not
inevitable at least not yet
with the right cutting edge research
diverse microbiomes could become a big
part of the solution to our climate
problem
thank you
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