Physiology and Rates in Microbial Oceanography (PRIMO)
We propose that physiological rate measurements can bridge BGC and ‘omics. Physiological rates quantify the integrated activity of proteins that drive marine BGC cycles in units that modelers can use. Looking at more advanced fields than oceanography, such as systems biology or biomedicine, ‘rates from ‘omics’ is unlikely in the next decade. On the other hand, research into the ocean’s BGC cycles reveals the potential of using the joint expertise of the physiology and ‘omics communities (i.e., co- design) to guide future research (Figure 1; Strzepek et al., 2022). We can extend this complementary approach to use ‘omics datasets to develop new targeted physiological metrics that improve the parameterization of BGC processes. We propose to develop a community and framework for co-design of physiological metrics that may act as ‘currency converters’ to link ‘omics datasets and BGC models, a central aim of the nascent (launch proposed for 2026) international BioGeoSCAPES program (www.biogeoscapes.org).
Figure 1. The potential of reverse-engineering a new suite of physiological metrics to provide better linkages with molecular tools, as exemplified by phosphorus. Potential physiological approaches (top left green box of illustrative examples) applicable to the proposed WG include re-evaluation of long- established metrics, developing a framework for quantitative high throughput enzyme assays, clever experimental design (Bell, 2019), quantifying adenylate energy charge (Karl, 1980) and tracking metabolite pools / fluxes (Moran et al., 2022). Top right panel is a KEGG map from iPath, a web-based tool to visualize cellular pathways from ‘omics (e.g., Nunn et al., 2013). Combining approaches— denoted by the green and blue intersecting arrows—will improve underpinning biochemical (e.g., metabolic, resource allocation) theory and identify candidate pathways for the co-design of new physiological assays.