Caves are accessible windows into the shallow subsurface, serving as transitional ecosystems between the photosynthesis-dependent surface and the deeper subsurface. Without a source of solar energy to ultimately power carbon (C) fixation (photolithoautotrophy), cave ecosystems are either reliant on surface-derived nutrients, recovering reducing power from the microbial oxidation of redox-sensitive...
To combat the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in clinical settings, it is necessary to understand which environments and conditions select for antibiotic resistance. Analysis of environments hypothesized to select for antibiotic resistance has been revolutionized by metagenomic sequencing. The metagenomic pool of DNA sequences can be probed in silico using...
Wastewater and bioreactors in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are reservoirs for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), which can pass through treatment processes and migrate into the environment as they are released in effluent. WWTPs harbor a variety of ARGs that can be spread by horizontal gene transfer facilitated by mobile genetic...
