Fire-affected soil is a new and promising source for bacterial natural product discovery. As microbes recolonize pyrolyzed soil, they likely produce secondary metabolites involved in mediating interspecies or even cross-kingdom interactions that could contribute to patterns of ecological succession. Previous work in the Bruns lab has demonstrated that a genus of pyrophilous fungi, Pyronema, strongly dominates in the first weeks after a fire, but then rapidly dies out. We hypothesize that antifungal products of secondary metabolism may be responsible for Pyronema’s dramatic decline.
I am screening a library of bacterial isolates from burned soil for antifungal activity, using a char-based culturing medium to mimic environmental stimuli. My project relies on analytical chemistry techniques (e.g. LC-MS/MS, NMR) for compound identification. I hope to integrate my identification of antifungals within this system with our lab’s ongoing work on post-fire bacterial and fungal community profiling