The MicroSudAqua (µSudAqua) network gathers researchers and students working on aquatic microbial ecology in Latin America. We seek to combine efforts to promote collective work and consolidate a collaborative space for the promotion of aquatic microbial ecology in the region.

Our premise is to exploit the resources available and, to explore new challenges that surpass what we can develop individually. We aim to promote inclusion in all dimensions, and to generate a team spirit where collaboration prevail, to develop a sense of belonging, commitment and pride for collective work.

Our Aims

What are the main objectives of the network?

• To consolidate and expand the interaction among researchers working on aquatic microbial ecology in Latin America,
• To develop a regional sense of scientific community,
• To provide a profitable space for long-term collaboration in research and training of human resources in aquatic microbial ecology.

Who is part of the Network?

This Network comprises researchers and students with an explicit interest in participating actively, with initiative to carry out activities within it, commitment, academic collegiality (intellectual respect, solidarity, collaborative spirit) and reciprocity.

What added value does the Network give us?

The Network provides added value to our work based on collective construction, in:

• Training: allows us to expand our technical and conceptual skills. Respond to common needs for advanced training (eg Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Theoretical Ecology, Landscape Ecology, GIS, Remote Sensing) through interaction, courses and thematic workshops.

• Community: makes us part of an inclusive group in terms of gender, themes and geographies that coexists in a supportive environment and allows us to:

  • Multiply the scientific, environmental and social impact of our work,
  • Solve problems that we could not address individually,
  • Generate collaborative research projects,
  • Develop synergies, open discussions, and scientific solidarity, with tolerance for the divergence of ideas.

• Financing: we aim to membership in the Network add credibility and robustness to local demands for financing. It also allows exploration of large-scale collaborative funding programs, which individual groups could not aspire to.

What did we have when the network emerged?

• Capacity and experience of the participant in multiple studies dimensions,
• Possibility to study different environmental axes at Latin American scale,
• The availability to study microorganisms from different communities (virus, archea, bacteria, protist, algae, zooplankton) and aspects (Taxonomy, genomics, phylogeny, functionality, metabolism).

What are the proposed actions of the network?

• To study new and emergent problems at temporal and spatial scale,
• To generate conceptual development of regional problematics,
• To advance on different concepts of the microbial world functioning,
• Development regional perspectives of global problems,
• To combine techniques generally applied separately,
• To perform comparative studies,
• To integrate new and published data by meta-analysis studies,
• Design field sampling to answer specific questions,
• Development of standard protocols for sampling, measure, sample processing and data analysis for all the groups,
• Centralize sample processing, and ensure quality control,
• To create and to maintain observatories.

How does the network work?

The network is conformed by a non-hierarchical structure, with initiatives that merge from the member base (“bottom-up”) and respect the general interest of the Network. A group of researchers advise and conduct the activities.

Face-to-face meetings have placed every two years with a rotating headquarters. During this, the works are presented, and new decisions are made about the further activities to perform.

How can I join the network?

The network is an open space for every researcher who is interested to share his work. To join us, please contact microsudaqua2017@gmail.com.

Microbial observatory network in Latin America

Summary

Microbial observatories are valuable tools that have been set around the world to facilitate the access of systematized information from microbial communities. However, few long-term observatories can be found in Latin America, mainly owing to difficulties in maintaining the necessary infrastructure for this type of activity. In this sense, our goal is to create a set of observatories to (I) evaluate how the anthropic impact and the climatic factors in a latitudinal gradient affect the dynamics of the microbial community at a continental scale; (II) standardize the collection methods to make the data from each site comparable which the others; (III) create a web page where the temporal changes of the microbial dynamics can be shown through a non-scientific approach (i.e. interactive maps, simple specific products), aimed at the population in general, the educational community and social organizations. Samplings of the microbial observatories contemplate at least a bimonthly frequency in the surface layer of the water column (euphotic zone) and the measurements of simple parameters to facilitate a long-time series data. So far, thirteen different observatory sites have been established to start this network through Latin America. In the selection of each site, the accessibility of them was also taken into account to achieve a continuity on the samplings. These sites will be reevaluated based on the difficulties encountered during the consolidation phase.

Chemical composition of bacterioplankton in south american aquatic systems

Summary Bacteria play an important role in nutrients uptake and remineralization and work as nutrient sources for other trophic levels. The strength of stoichiometric homeostasis for C, N, and P differs among major phylogenetic groups, furthermore they can change your stoichiometry in function of the environmental conditions (for example, nutrient limitation). These particularities can greatly affect local to global carbon balance estimates. However, bacterial biomass in aquatic systems is commonly estimated using fixed conversion factors from bacterial density or biomass into carbon. As a consequence, as these factors do not take into account the great environmental heterogeneity, the mass balances may be greatly biased. Considering that the elemental composition of bacterial biomass is poorly investigated in natural assemblages, during the first µSudaqua meeting, we proposed the group “Chemical composition of bacterial biomass in South America aquatic systems” to address: (I) How does the carbon composition in bacterial biomass varies in the aquatic ecosystems in South America? (II) How the environmental parameters (e.g. trophic state, latitudinal gradients) would affect the C, N and P composition and stoichiometry in bacterial biomass from South America aquatic bacterial communities? As a result, we elaborated a standardized and detailed protocol to be employed in several aquatic ecosystems across the continent in the next months and a table to be completed by the collaborating researchers. Each collaborator in this project will contribute with samples from at least 4 systems or 1 system in the seasonal approach with at least 4 samplings over time. For the next meeting, we plan to write one methodological paper that aims to reveal equations based on environmental parameters to achieve more adequate conversion factors to carbon into biomass to each ecosystem.

Functional traits across freshwater microbial communities

(based on soft, easy-to-measure, traits)

Summary

Traits are measurable or quantifiable characteristics of organisms that are directly or indirectly related to some component of their biological fitness, and vary along environmental gradients. The idea that underlies the use of traits is that communities are structured based on the characteristics of their organisms, and not on the identity of the species. These can be morphological, physiological, behavioral or related to the life cycle, and organize around ecological functions such as reproduction, acquisition of resources and evasion of predation. In this sense, traits are functional when they allow us to predict or explain processes, strategies or responses to different conditions. Our objective is to study the use of functional traits throughout the spectrum of microbial communities (viruses, picoplankton, phytoplankton >5 µm, heterotrophic nanoflagellates, microzooplankton) that are relevant in ecology. To do this: i) we will analyze the use of this approach in the literature; ii) we will identify transversal features to all the groups and specific features of each one of them; iii) and we will investigate the types of questions that can be answered by approaching traits.

Patterns of microbial diversity

Summary

We propose a collaboration among South American researchers on microbial ecology to promote the generation and compilation of a large microbiome database from aquatic ecosystems across South-America. We will try to elucidate large-scale patterns of South American aquatic microbial life, which are key players of all biogeochemical cycles, and to reconstruct the bacterial South American biogeography. We will compile, analyze and consolidate the largest geo-referenced freshwater database of aquatic microbial diversity: the µSudAqua database that covers several South American biomes. The curated georeferenced database will allow to test hypotheses from a metacommunity perspective, such as microbial biogeography, community ecology processes, keystone species and interaction networks.

PicoSudAqua

Early stage investigators

Summary

Participants

You can find the updated list of participants at this link

Events

I Workshop of the collaborative Network on Aquatic Microbial Ecology in Latin America

Date: December 04 to 08, 2017

Local: Rocha, Uruguay

Description

Abstracts

II Workshop of the collaborative Network on Aquatic Microbial Ecology in Latin America

Date: November 11 to 14, 2019

Local: Chascomús, Argentina

Description

Abstracts

Virtual Workshop of the collaborative Network on Aquatic Microbial Ecology in Latin America

Date: October 21 to 22, 2021

Description

Abstracts

III Workshop of the collaborative Network on Aquatic Microbial Ecology in Latin America

Date: October 11 to 15, 2022

Local: Brazil

Description

Abstracts

Next Event

IV Workshop of the collaborative Network on Aquatic Microbial Ecology in Latin America

Expected date: December, 2024

Local: Argentina

Database

µSudAqua[db]: a georeferenced rRNA amplicon database of aquatic microbiomes from South America‌

The biogeography of bacterial communities is a key topic in Microbial Ecology. Regarding continental water, most studies are carried out in the northern hemisphere, leaving a gap on microorganism’s diversity patterns on a global scale. South America harbours approximatelly one third of the world’s total fresh water resources, and is one of these understudied regions. To fill this gap, we compiled 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing data of microbial communities across South America continental water ecosystems, presenting the first database µSudAqua[db]. The database contains over 872 georeferenced samples from 9 different ecoregions with contextual environmental information. For its integration and validation we constructed a curated database (µSudAqua[db.sp]) using samples sequenced in Illumina MiSeq platform using the same prokaryote universal primers. This comprised ~60% of the total georeferenced samples of the µSudAqua[db]. This compilation was carried out in the scope of the µSudAqua collaborative network and represents one of the most complete databases of continental water microbial communities from South America. See the documentation for more details, or access the database.