The director of the Millennium Institute of Oceanography (IMO), Dr. Osvaldo Ulloa, presents his research results at the most important scientific meeting on microbial ecology worldwide.
This is the XIX International Symposium on Microbial Ecology (ISME19) which this year takes place from August 18 to 23 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Dr. Osvaldo Ulloa was invited as the main speaker of the event, which will feature prominent international researchers such as Jennifer Martiny (United States, winner of the ISME Winogradsky Award), Jean-Baptiste Raina, (Australia, winner of the Alma Dal Co Award), Jill Banfield (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Victoria Orphan (CalTech, USA), Tulio de Oliveira (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) and Rob Knight, (University of California, San Diego, USA).
“We have been working in Chile on marine microbial ecology for more than 20 years and our discoveries have had a global impact. The ISME meeting is held every two years. I was invited in 2020, but it was cancelled due to the pandemic. In 2022 I was unable to attend due to another commitment, so it finally took place this year,” says the academic from the Department of Oceanography at the University of Concepción and director of the Millennium Institute of Oceanography, Dr. Osvaldo Ulloa.
The academic from the University of Antofagasta, Dr. Cristina Dorador, also participated in the event as a speaker in the session "Advances in the understanding of terrestrial microbial systems as stabilizers of an increasingly unstable world", together with Kristen DeAngelis (U. Massachusetts, USA), Zhongjun Jia (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) and Susannah Tringe (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA).
However, the only Latin American and Chilean keynote speaker is the academic from the University of Concepción, Dr. Osvaldo Ulloa Quijada, who expressed his feelings after representing the country and Latin America at this important global scientific event: “It is undoubtedly an honor and a sign that from the so-called ‘global south’ we can contribute to global knowledge.”
This aspect was highlighted in the presentation of statistics of the symposium, which brings together 1,533 registered delegates from 70 different countries and 1,574 attendees; 549 students and 325 postdoctoral researchers. The geographical representation of the event is expressed as follows: 37% of the participants come from Europe, 23% from North America, 16% from Asia, 12% from Africa, 6% from Oceania and only 4% from Latin America.
Featured Presentation
In the ISME19 Symposium Keynote Speakers presentation, Dr. Osvaldo Ulloa is featured as "Professor in the Department of Oceanography and Director of the Millennium Institute of Oceanography at the University of Concepción in his native Chile. He is also a member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences."
"For the past twenty years, his research has focused on microbial phylogenetic diversity, environmental genomics, and the biogeochemistry of oxygen-poor ocean waters. His most recent work focuses on the exploration and study of ultra-deep (hadal) environments, in particular the Atacama Trench." See keynote speaker review here.
At ISME19, Dr. Ulloa presented his paper on Tuesday, August 20, at 9:00 a.m. (7 AM Chile time), "The globally significant cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus may have originated in a low-oxygen ocean."
In his presentation, the Chilean researcher explained that "In modern major oceanic oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), surface phytoplankton groups disappear as oxygen decreases with depth, while unique, uncultured basal lineages of the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus thrive below the oxycline of the water column, where oxygen is undetectable."
"These OMZ cyanobacteria thrive in a low-light, spectrally narrow, but nutrient-rich environment. Studies of oxygen production and carbon fixation rates have shown that they engage in oxygenic photosynthesis, driving a cryptic oxygen cycle in which aerobic processes can occur under seemingly anoxic conditions," said the director of the Millennium Institute of Oceanography at ISME19. "Furthermore, analysis of amplified single-cell genomes has revealed that these indigenous Prochlorococcus lineages present genes for divergent light-harvesting antennae as well as complementary genes or genetic variants for various microaerobic or anaerobic metabolisms, particularly for pigment synthesis. We hypothesize that Prochlorococcus originated in a low-oxygen subsurface ocean before colonizing oxic, light-rich, low-nitrogen surface waters. Therefore, it is possible that this cyanobacterium contributed to ocean oxidation in the past," he added.
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