DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT

coming... Launch balloons carrying sampling equipment into clouds over New York City, collect cloud water, isolate microbial DNA, sequence, and publish results as open-data for research. ECOHACK III

IMPACTS

Airborn microbial populations may have profound impact on the world around us. Some known areas of interest include, climate and weather, human health, agricultural health, and global environmental change. It has been found previously that clouds offer a unique environment for fairly abundant microbial populations (see Amato 2012) and that there are enough microbes in the clouds to affect physicochemical processes.

SEQUENCING WORKFLOW

coming... Collection Filtering Extraction Amplification Sequencing and Assembly

CHALLENGES

coming.. Collecting from a balloon Getting a big enough sample Replicating the study enough times (both globally and in the same location) to build a substantial metagenomic (see Wooley et al. for an overview) dataset of cloud biodiversity over space and time.

ENVIRONMENTAL DATA

coming.. Importance of metadata Combing sampling with the environmental sampling technologies developed in EcoHackII to record the environment of our sample.

SAMPLING SCHEMA

coming... replications per location (e.g. 10 samples in NYC) layout

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

coming... Refine the open hardware kit and move toward non-cloud air column sampling.

PREVIOUS SAMPLING METHODS

Bauer et al.,

Cultivable airborne microorganisms were collected directly from the ambient air under out-of-cloud conditions onto sterile cellulose nitrate filters (Sartorius, 47 mm ∅, bacteria: pore width: 0.45 μm; fungi: pore width: 0.8 μm), which were mounted in open face polycarbonate filter holders, which have been disinfected with 70% ethanol and isopropanol prior to sampling. The sampling time was 5 min at a flow rate of 24 l min−1. Loaded filters were placed onto agar plates within 10 min.

SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

Amato P. 2012. Clouds Provide Atmospheric Oases for Microbes. Microbe

Bauer, H., A. Kasper-Giebl, M. Löflund, H. Giebl, R. Hitzenberger, F. Zibuschka, and H. Puxbaum. 2002. The contribution of bacteria and fungal spores to the organic carbon content of cloud water, precipitation and aerosols. Atmos. Res. 64:109-119.

Wooley JC, Godzik A, Friedberg I (2010) A Primer on Metagenomics. PLoS Comput Biol 6(2): e1000667. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000667