Quantitative Bioscience at the University of Tennessee

Microbial Ecosystem Modeling

Microbes are found in almost all aquatic and terrestrial environments and are associated with all species of plants and animals. Microbes function in complex communities, from dozen of species in extreme environments to many hundreds or tens of thousands per gram of soil. The work of microbial ecosystem modeling is to understand the underlying mechanisms that determine ecosystem function in microbial communities. Analysis of microbial communities could include, for example, quantification of fluxes through pathways for nutrient resources and energy, identification of interactions of populations with each other and their environment, and inference of higher-order system properties. Mathematical models can provide a deep understanding of microbial community dynamics.

	Department	Research Interests
Michael J. Blum Email	Ecology & Evolutionary Biology	Aquatic ecology, socioecology, sustainability, conservation biology
Alison Buchan Email	Microbiology	Molecular microbial ecology, bacterial aromatic compound catabolism, marine microbiology
Terry C. Hazen Email	Governor's Chair for Environmental Biotechnology; Civil & Environmental Engineering; Earth and Planetary Sciences; Microbiology	Environmental microbiology, systems biology approach to bioremediation, bioenergy and water quality, genomics
Stephanie Kivlin Email	Ecology & Evolutionary Biology	Ecosystem ecology, microbial ecology, global change
Frank Löffler Email	Governor's Chair for Microbiology and Civil and Environmental Engineering; Microbiology	Environmental microbiology and microbial ecology, microbial bioremediation, genomics
David Talmy Email	Microbiology	Ocean microbial ecology & biogeochemistry
Steven Wilhelm Email	Microbiology	Molecular ecology of viruses, bacteria and algae in oceans and large lakes

NIMBioS
1122 Volunteer Blvd., Suite 106
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-3410
PH: (865) 974-9334
FAX: (865) 974-9461
Contact NIMBioS

From 2008 until early 2021, NIMBioS was supported by the National Science Foundation through NSF Award #DBI-1300426, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.