‘Prediction of the biodegeneration potential of ecosystems and its modelling’

Almudena Trigo Lorenzo, Dietmar Pieper, Ildefonso Cases Díaz, Manuel José Gómez Rodríguez, Robert Hoffman.

In contaminated soils, the metabolic activities of microbial communities have to degrade not just vegetable compounds and animal waste but also xenobiotic compounds and pollutants.

This project sets out to construct a “Global Biodegradation Network” in order to go beyond traditional studies which analyse genes and enzymes in isolation, and apply the new technologies of microbial genomics, molecular microbiology and computational network analysis to the field of ecosystem management and chemical pollution. This Network will help in future to provide a more effective response to environmental disasters.