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Models de terraformació. Estudi de la dinàmica de poblacions entre microorganismes sintètics i autòctons per a la degradació de plàstic oceànic
Summary
This thesis explores whether synthetic biology approaches could be used to develop microorganisms capable of degrading ocean plastic, using population dynamics models to assess the theoretical feasibility and ecological risks of releasing plastic-degrading organisms into open ocean environments. The work sits at the intersection of environmental biotechnology and terraforming concept studies.
Our planet is experiencing an accelerated process of change associated to a variety of anthropogenic phenomena. The presence of vast amount of plastic in the open ocean has generated great concern to its potential ecological consequences. The cutting edge area of biology, synthetic biology, leads to new approaches and promises solutions to some of today's most pressing challenges in environmental protection in order to restore the ecosystem-level homeostasis in affected areas. Under the supervision of the research group of ICREA-Complex Systems Lab (CSL, http://complex.upf.edu/) the present project offers a theoretical aproach which aims to understand the dynamics of different mathematical and computational models about the oceanic plastic debris degradation potential from a synthetic microbial strain based on the wild type present in the affected ecosystem. We have been analyzing the problem assuming that many important problems in complex systems are related in one way or another with the presence of phase transition phenomena. Going through a scaled set of computational and mathematical models based on the simplest model philosopy, we have been validating population dymnamics strategies, at first stage level, as fuction and die degradation process or the biofilm formation capacity to increase the control over microplastic dispersion, as well as determining the key aspects of the studied system, always from a qualitative point of view. The different models explored have been performed using cellular automata (CA), individual based models (IBM), Mean Field, as stochastic models in 1 and 2 dimensions (1D and 2D) and contrasting them with analytical models. Most of them in MATLAB programming language. As a final addressing, there have been initiated laboratory experiments to explore the assumed biofilm capacity to catch plastic as a primary experimental approach to the proposed population dynamics. Furthermore the results, the present work suppose a huge learning process that has allowed me the possibility to get into the world of complex systems and synthetic biology.