HR: 16:15h
AN: B44A-02    [Abstracts]
TI: Overview of Microbial Ecology and Geomicrobiology in lakes on the Tibetan Plateau
AU: * Dong, H
EM: dongh@muohio.edu
AF: Miami University Department of Geology, Patterson Ave at Route 73, Oxford, OH 45056 United States
AU: Zhang, C
EM: zhang@srel.edu
AF: Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, P.O. Box Drawer E, Aiken, SC 29802 United States
AB: Tibet is Earth's largest and highest plateau, which is one of the most sensitive areas to global climate change. Numerous lakes are present on the Tibetan Plateau, which are at different stages of evolution in chemistry and biology as the Plateau has been raised by tectonic activities in the past 10's of millions of years. This paper describes a long-term collaborative international research and education program to address the critical global climate-change problem by studying the present and past ecosystems in lakes on the Tibetan Plateau. Our overall research goal is twofold: 1) to study the diversity and productivity of the aquatic autotrophic organisms, which produce valuable and lasting biomarkers that can be used to decipher environmental and climate change in the past; 2) to study the preservation and vertical distribution of molecular biomarkers (DNA and lipids) in the sedimentary records so that the evolutionary pattern of paleoecosystem can be correlated to changes in plaeoclimate or paleohydrology. Preliminary studies have been performed in four of these lakes (Chaka, Erhai, Gahai, and Qinghai) on the Tibetan Plateau by using advanced and high-throughput functional gene-array technology corroborated by conventional cultivation and molecular 16S rRNA gene analyses, water chemistry, mineralogy, lipid biomarkers, and carbon isotope signatures. Highlights of these studies will be presented, which will be substantiated by poster presentations in this session (Jiang et al., 2005; Tuo et al., 2005, Wang et al., 2005).
DE: 0400 BIOGEOSCIENCES
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005