Despite the importance of biogeochemical processes in carbon transformation and their role in regulating nutrient and contaminant release in freshwater sediments, the dynamic of these processes cannot be predicted accurately by current reactive transport models. These models largely rely on detectable changes in geochemical conditions to activate metabolic processes and are therefore unable to account for the activity of cryptic cycling processes. In addition, these models are unable to accurately account for the competition between microbial processes. In this project, new rate laws that rely on a combination of high throughput omics (meta-genomic, -transcriptomic, -proteomic, -bolomic) and geochemical signatures are being developed to identify the underlying anaerobic microbial processes in stream and wetland sediments. These rate laws consider the thermodynamic driving force, growth yield, and the competition between the dominant metabolic processes based on new approaches to more accurately quantify carbon transformation and microbial responses to changes in redox conditions. These concepts will be presented and applied to a suite of sediment slurry incubations conducted with Savannah River National Laboratory wetland sediments and Oak Ridge National Laboratory East Fork Poplar Creek sediments to characterize the main anaerobic respiration processes and investigate the competition between the dominant metabolic processes in these shallow sediments.

Integration of omics into a new comprehensive rate law for competitive terminal electron-accepting processes in freshwater sediments

2019 Fall National Meeting

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