Exploring Mechanisms of Bacterial Adaptation to Seasonal Temperature Change

This research examines three potential mechanisms by which bacteria can adapt to different temperatures: changes in strain-level population structure, gene regulation and particle colonization. For the first two mechanisms, I utilize bacterial strains from the Vibrionaceae family due to their ease of culturability, ubiquity in coastal environments and status as a model system for marine bacteria. I first examine vibrio seasonal dynamics in temperate, coastal water and compare the thermal performance of strains that occupy different thermal environments. Our results suggest that there are tradeoffs in adaptation to specific temperatures and that thermal specialization can occur at a very fine phylogenetic scale. The observed thermal specialization over relatively short evolutionary time-scales indicates that few genes or cellular processes may limit expansion to a different thermal niche. I then compare the genomic and transcriptional changes associated with thermal adaptation in closely-related vibrio strains under heat and cold stress. The two vibrio strains have very similar genomes and overall exhibit similar transcriptional profiles in response to temperature stress but their temperature preferences are determined by differential transcriptional responses in shared genes as well as temperature-dependent regulation of unique genes. Finally, I investigate the temporal dynamics of particle-attached and free-living bacterial community in coastal seawater and find that microhabitats exert a stronger forcing on microbial communities than environmental variability, suggesting that particle-attachment could buffer the impacts of environmental changes and particle-associated communities likely respond to the presence of distinct eukaryotes rather than commonly-measured environmental parameters. Integrating these results will offer new perspectives on the mechanisms by which bacteria respond to seasonal temperature changes as well as potential adaptations to climate change-driven warming of the surface oceans.

Design of Latent Thermal Energy Storage Systems

This dissertation documents the results of a theoretical and numerical study of time dependent storage of energy by melting a phase change material. The heating is provided along invading lines, which change from single-line invasion to tree-shaped invasion. Chapter 2 identifies the special design feature of distributing energy storage in time-dependent fashion on a territory, when the energy flows by fluid flow from a concentrated source to points (users) distributed equidistantly on the area. The challenge in this chapter is to determine the architecture of distributed energy storage. The chief conclusion is that the finite amount of storage material should be distributed proportionally with the distribution of the flow rate of heating agent arriving on the area. The total time needed by the source stream to ‘invade’ the area is cumulative (the sum of the storage times required at each storage site), and depends on the energy distribution paths and the sequence in which the users are served by the source stream. Chapter 3 shows theoretically that the melting process consists of two phases: “invasion” thermal diffusion along the invading line, which is followed by “consolidation” as heat diffuses perpendicularly to the invading line. This chapter also reports the duration of both phases and the evolution of the melt layer around the invading line during the two-dimensional and three-dimensional invasion. It also shows that the amount of melted material increases in time according to a curve shaped as an S. These theoretical predictions are validated by means of numerical simulations in chapter 4. This chapter also shows that the heat transfer rate density increases (i.e., the S curve becomes steeper) as the complexity and number of degrees of freedom of the structure are increased, in accord with the constructal law. The optimal geometric features of the tree structure are detailed in this chapter. Chapter 5 documents a numerical study of time-dependent melting where the heat transfer is convection dominated, unlike in chapter 3 and 4 where the melting is ruled by pure conduction. In accord with constructal design, the search is for effective heat-flow architectures. The volume-constrained improvement of the designs for heat flow begins with assuming the simplest structure, where a single line serves as heat source. Next, the heat source is endowed with freedom to change its shape as it grows. The objective of the numerical simulations is to discover the geometric features that lead to the fastest melting process. The results show that the heat transfer rate density increases as the complexity and number of degrees of freedom of the structure are increased. Furthermore, the angles between heat invasion lines have a minor effect on the global performance compared to other degrees of freedom: number of branching levels, stem length, and branch lengths. The effect of natural convection in the melt zone is documented.