Elucidating Microbial Processes Across Spatial and Temporal Scales

The theme of the 2018 Marine Microbes Gordon Research Conference is "Elucidating Microbial Processes Across Spatial and Temporal Scales". Marine microbes (autotrophic and heterotrophic Bacteria, Archaea and Eukaryota and viruses) live in diverse, three-dimensional environments, with individual cells, consortia and communities responding to and lubricating ecological, biogeochemical and evolutionary processes over different spatial (from cellular to mesoscale to global scale) and temporal (from diel to seasonal to evolutionary) scales. While microbial interactions, activities and processes take place in the microscale, they can exert profound collective impacts across space and time. Interpreting the nature and degree of these impacts across such wide scales and connecting them with inherently diverse genetic, biochemical and metabolic capabilities represent major challenges and opportunities in the field. This GRC will discuss research initiatives aimed at interrogating, interpreting and integrating microbial processes that shape, connect and control ecosystem interactions and biogeochemical cycles and help to put the "form, flow and function" of microbial genes, activities and processes in an Earth system context. The meeting aims to include cutting-edge research and perspectives from diverse fields (e.g. ecology, physiology, omics, biophysics, mathematics, modeling) in order to adequately characterize, contextualize and elucidate the interactive environments and consequences of marine microbes. It will feature cross-disciplinary presentations of unpublished, frontier work by investigators at the forefront of the field and will provide opportunities for scientists to exchange ideas in a collegial, collaborative atmosphere through extensive discussion sessions and daily informal gatherings.