Microbial Bioprospecting Utilizing Large-scale Environmental (Meta)genomes

In-silico microbial bioprospecting searches sequence data generated from large-scale environmental surveys for microbial candidates and their potential functions for use in industrial and research applications. Using this approach, this PhD study discovered (i) metagenome-assembled genomes for archaeal nitrifiers candidates that were suitable for the physicochemical conditions in WA soils; (ii) explored an in-situ environmental method of creating reduced complexity communities that could also potentially elucidate rare and underrepresented taxa; (iii) compiled a candidate list of bioplastics producing species from genomes available from publicly available databases; and (iv) provided a science communication piece to guide new researchers towards (meta)genomic-based studies.