Microbes and Memory

Microorganisms adapt quickly to changes in their environment due in part to their short generation time. In the lab under optimal growth conditions, a new generation can arise in only 20 minutes. This means that in the time that you might spend perusing this website, a whole new generation of microbes might occur in the soil in your garden, or your gut.

This capacity means that the composition and function of a microbiome can change in response to environmental changes, including abiotic factors like temperature, chemical composition, or pH. For example, the local marine microbiome changed rapidly in response to the Deep Water Horizon oil spill and maintained that dynamic over time. For this reason, the microbiome serves as an indicator of abiotic conditions, and can be used as a quantitative geochemical biosensor.

As such, a microbiome maintains a memory of its environment, inscribed in the molecular data its DNA encodes. In the era of the Anthropocene, this means that the microbiome of a contaminated river, or a chemical test site, or a ploughed and fertilized field, maintains a molecular memory of the history of human intervention at that site.

Questions we are exploring in this topic are:

When are microbially-kept records more accurate than human-kept records?

Can a microbial component be considered part of the heritage of a site?

What can we learn from microbes about living in the Anthropocene?