As part of the VALORMICRO project, a culture collection of bacteria specific to New Caledonia has been established.
The marine microbiome plays a key role in biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem balance, while representing a major biotechnological resource. In New Caledonia, this biodiversity is threatened by environmental change (climate, anthropogenic pressures…)
This project has several objectives:
1. To characterize marine bacterial diversity across different sites in New Caledonia and over time (warm and cold seasons, monitored over three years).
2. To build a culture collection of bacterial strains specific to New Caledonia.
3. To exploit this collection to identify bacteria with biotechnological potential.
This work addresses the third objective by identifying, from a mixed bacterial community collected near a waste disposal site, strains capable of degrading plastics such as PE and PET, and by monitoring their degradation dynamics over time.
