PROSPECTING MICROBIAL DIVERSITY AND FUNCTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH AGRICULTURAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND FOOD SYSTEMS VIA THE PROSPECTOR INSTRUMENT

Microbes play important roles in agriculture in numerous ways, including the efficiency of producing, safety, and the nutritional of food. Even though microbes are recognized to provide critical functions for each of these aspects of food, we currently lack effective ways to manipulate these microbes to better serve our needs. In the past 15 years, we have experienced a significant increase in our ability to identify the numbers and types of microbes present in different agricultural environments. This has not, however, resulted in an increased ability to manipulate microbes for our benefit. By increasing our ability to not only identify and count, but also isolate, diverse microbes from different environments, we will take an additional step towards being able to tailor microbial communities (microbiomes) to enhance agricultural production, food safety, and nutrition.