Prospecting in the rainforest to develop biofuel technology.

Principal Investigator: Kristen DeAngelis

Plant biomass is the most abundantly available source of renewable energy on Earth. Most of this energy is stored as lignocellulose, a polymer that is the structural building block for plants. Some bacteria are able to convert (or decompose) lignocellulose to biofuels. Bacterial communities in tropical forest soils exhibit some of the highest decomposition rates in the world. We study these soil microbiomes to understand and identify efficient and cost-effective processes for renewable energy production from plants.