Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Microbial Biology for FY 2000

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This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Microbial Biology for 2000.The research and training plan is in the area of Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology and is entitled "Diversity and Physiology of Extemely Small Algae." This research addresses the question of what role differences in niche adaptation play in the existence of different clades of marine cyanobacteria. Two free-living strains of the marine cyanobacterium Synechococcus, one representing a coastal clade and the other an open ocean clade, are being compared to assess physiological differences and adaptive capacities to nitrogen starvation. Subtraction cDNA libraries are being produced and the sequences analyzed to identify protein sequence and motifs of nitrate transporting proteins. Generated sequence is used to produce a microarray, and chip experiments are designed to examine and compare the magnitude and kinetics of the two strains to nitrogen deprivation. This data will help answer the question of whether different strains differ in expressional patterns in ways that indicate niche adaptation or resource partitioning, both of which are frequent evolutionary responses to competition.