Doctoral thesis (Dissertations and theses)
Soil viral particles as tracers of surface water sources and flow paths
Florent, Perrine Julie
2023
 

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Abstract :
[en] Albeit recent technological developments (e.g. field deployable instruments operating at high temporal frequencies), experimental hydrology is a discipline that remains measurement limited. From this perspective, trans-disciplinary approaches may create valuable opportunities to enlarge the number of tools available for investigating hydrological processes. Tracing experiments are usually performed in order to investigate the water flow pathways and water sources in underground areas. Since the 19th century, researchers have worked with hydrological tracers to do this. Among them, the fluorescent dyes and the isotopes are the most commonly used to follow the water flow while others like salts or bacteriophages are employed as additional tracers to those mentioned above. Bacteriophages are the least known of all, but it has been studied since the 1960s as hydrological tracers, especially in karstic environments. The purpose is to evaluate the potential for bacteriophages naturally occurring in soils to serve as a new environmental tracer of hydrological processes. We hypothesize that such viral particles can be a promising tool in water tracing experiments since they are safe for ecosystems. In both fields of hydrology and virology, the knowledge regarding the fate of bacteriophages within the pedosphere is still limited. Their study would not only allow proposing potential new candidates to enlarge the hydrological tracers available, but also improving the current knowledge about the bacteriophage communities in soil and their interactions with certain environmental factors. For this purpose, we aim at describing the bacteriophage communities occurring in the soil through shotgun metagenomics analysis. Those viruses are widely spread in the pedosphere, and we assume that they have specific signatures according to the type of soil. Then, bacteriophage populations will be investigated in the soil water to analyse the dis/similarities between the two communities as well as their dynamics in the function of the precipitation events. This way, with a relatively high abundance of soil and soil water and a capacity of being mobilised, good bacteriophage candidates could be selected as hydrological tracers.
Research center :
LIST - Luxembourg Institute of Science & Technology
Disciplines :
Environmental sciences & ecology
Author, co-author :
Florent, Perrine Julie ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Medecine (FSTM) ; Luxembourg Institute of Science & Technology - LIST > Environmental Research and Innovation > ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY > PhD student
Language :
English
Title :
Soil viral particles as tracers of surface water sources and flow paths
Defense date :
24 January 2023
Number of pages :
XII, 260
Institution :
Unilu - University of Luxembourg, Belvaux, Luxembourg
Degree :
Docteur en Biologie
President :
Jury member :
Bueb, Jean-Luc 
Gantzer, Christophe
Baudoux, Anne-Claire
FnR Project :
FNR10623093 - Towards A Holistic Understanding Of River Systems: Innovative Methodologies For Unraveling Hydrological, Chemical And Biological Interactions Across Multiple Scales, 2015 (01/03/2017-31/08/2023) - Laurent Pfister
Funders :
FNR - Fonds National de la Recherche [LU]
Available on ORBilu :
since 09 March 2023

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