Dr Paul Evans

Primary Research Interest
Metabolism and Genomics of Microorganisms from Natural and Engineered Environments
About Me
Paul is an ARC Future Fellow at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE) within the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences. At ACE, he employs molecular, metagenomic, and cultivation techniques to study microorganisms from natural and engineered environments, demonstrating how they cycle carbon and other elements within these systems.
Microbiological studies are often hindered by the slow growth and fastidious nature of many microbial cohorts, particularly those from complex communities. These microbes may have unknown growth requirements or depend on consortia for survival, making their metabolism difficult to study. Despite these challenges, these microorganisms play critical roles in carbon and element cycling, which are vital for the biogeochemical processes that sustain life on Earth. The advent of high-throughput DNA and RNA sequencing has revolutionised the study of such microorganisms. Using these techniques, it is now possible to assemble genomes from poorly described microbes and infer their metabolic capabilities without requiring cultivation. Recent papers led by Paul have leveraged metagenomic approaches to describe many microorganisms with unusual metabolic traits that are active across diverse environments.
Future challenges in studying methane-cycling microorganisms involve using genomic data to guide cultivation efforts, providing context for their metabolic roles in carbon cycling within anaerobic ecosystems.
Teaching Interests
Funded Projects
- ARC Future Fellowship (2022-2025).
Exploring the blackbox of archaeal methane metabolism. - ARC Discovery Projects (2021-2024).
Bringing Archaeal biodiversity to life from native Australian herbivores. - ARC Early Career Researcher Award (2017-2021).
Opening the blackbox on the diversity and evolution of novel methanogens.