By: Andy Wood
This is not at all what I had planned. I’m probably not alone in feeling that way during this unprecedented time but researching microbial communities in aquaponics systems is REALLY not what I thought I would be doing during my Junior year summer. I mean—I’m not a biology major. I don’t even have a minor that’s STEM adjacent. I’ve spent most of my college career studying start-ups and design strategy, not bacterial morphology or aquatic nutrient cycling. So how did I, a man with exactly one college biology course under his belt, end up in the Wrigley Institute’s summer REU program?
Figure 1 Diagram of the Thornton Aquaponics System
It’s really a testament to the Wrigley Institute and its staff’s commitment to providing flexible research experiences that can attract a very diverse set of students. While I am not formally studying biology, I am very passionate about sustainable agriculture and recognize that every innovation or technological advance has its roots in scientific research and discovery. As such, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help write a manuscript for Dr. Adriane Jones and Dr. Diane Kim’s research into microbial communities in aquaponics systems. It was the perfect opportunity for me to gain deep scientific knowledge of a cutting-edge farming technology while also authentically exposing myself to primary scientific research.
Our research project centers on microbial communities in aquaponics systems because they are absolutely critical to maintaining proper function. They allow fish and plants to live symbiotically by converting fish waste into fertilizers like nitrate, protecting plants and fish from pathogens, and detoxifying the water. Without microbes, aquaponics systems fundamentally would not work; and yet, we know very little about what specific species of microbes inhabit aquaponics systems. In order to manage aquaponics systems for increased plant and fish health, faster crop production, and higher nutrient density, we must understand the microbial communities within aquaponics and how to beneficially manipulate them. This includes understanding the individual microbial species, where they live in the system, what nutrients they depend on, and how they work together to maintain a stable ecosystem. Contributing to these gaps in knowledge was our primary goal in conducting this research.
Figure 2: Dr. Diane Kim with the Thornton Aquaponics System on Catalina Island
Our manuscript describes an experiment conducted from spring 2016 to summer 2017. For the experiment, Dr. Jones and Dr. Kim studied the microbial community of the Thornton Aquaponics system at the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island. They took both water and biofilm samples from each part of the system (fish tank, hydroponic media bed, floating raft bed, and biofilter) in order to examine how the microbial communities changed across different system components physically and temporally. After extracting all the microbes from the water samples using a very fine filter, they sequenced the microbes DNA. Each of the unique DNA sequences found in the samples was checked against a database of known microbial species in order to discover what species were living in different parts of the system and how the community changed over time. Comparisons groups of sequences were made to see how diverse and varied microbial communities were across the Thornton Aquaponics system.
Figure 3: A bray-curtis cluster diagram showing the genetic similarity between each of the microbial community samples we took from the Thornton Aquaponics System
In addition to analyzing our own data, I’ve spent the last seven weeks contextualizing our study of the Thornton Aquaponics System within the larger scope of aquaponics research. We have reviewed research on everything from microbial nitrification in commercial aquaponics systems to biofilm communities in industrial wastewater filters. By reviewing diverse research, we build a greater understanding of what microbes are commonly found in aquaponics systems, how they contribute to the system’s ecology, and how environmental parameters like pH, temperature, and nutrient availability impact them. With this information, we can draw more specific conclusions from our own data and recognize how our study supports or contradicts the results of previous experiments. Comparisons to previous work also allows us to identify which areas within aquaponics deserve more research and where technology can best be deployed to improve aquaponic system efficiency.
While conducting completely remote research nearly 3000 miles away from our test system is certainly not ideal, there are silver linings to this situation. For me personally, I’ve realized how much you can learn about cutting edge technology by doing even a short review of scientific literature. I wouldn’t exactly classify reading research papers as “fun”, but there really is no better way to see the frontier of human knowledge, catch glimpses of where a certain field might be headed in the future, or recognize opportunities for innovation. I will likely never be a card-carrying scientist, but that doesn’t mean the skills or knowledge I have acquired this summer are not useful to my future. I may never write another scientific manuscript but knowing how to read them will allow me to stay current on scientific breakthroughs around sustainable development and intensive farming going forward. I will also probably never lead a study of nitrification pathways in aquaponics systems myself, but I will have a deep respect for every scientist who does in the future. You don’t have to be a scientist to benefit from scientific research and I am immensely grateful to the Wrigley Institute for allowing an odd duck like me to join the REU flock this summer.