The Dr. Benoit De Pins, MSCA Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Naples Federico II, Invited by James Bradley, will give a seminar on the theme : Mapping biological carbon fixation across the Earth, the Wednesday 10 December 2025 at 13:00 in the OCEANOMED Amphitheatre.
Abstract Carbon fixation is fundamental to life on Earth and predominantly occurs through the canonical Calvin cycle. However, microbial life has also evolved five alternative pathways for carbon fixation. While the Calvin cycle has been drawing significant attention for decades, carbon fixation involving these non-canonical pathways remains poorly understood. HDe la mer Méditerranée à l'océan Atlantique : croiser les approches pour dévoiler le cycle du owever, they are ecologically essential in diverse environments, such as anoxic habitats within Earth's subsurface. Their contribution to the global carbon cycle, though long overlooked, is now garnering increased attention. The recent surge in metagenomic data from diverse environments now offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore carbon fixation strategies in greater detail. Accordingly, several studies aiming to better characterize this metabolic diversity across various environments have emerged in recent years. Yet they often remain isolated and do not accurately describe the dependence of these metabolisms on the geoenvironmental context. Our work aims to present a blueprint of carbon fixation on Earth. Using in-house and publicly available metagenomes from a wide range of environments, we systematically analyzed carbon fixation strategies across the Earth, in search of the main environmental factors determining the carbon fixation pathway used. Our systematic approach not only increases our understanding of the role of microbial metabolism in global carbon cycling but may also open perspectives on life's adaptability on Earth and beyond.
Photo credit: Fondation Bettencourt Schueller