Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Microbial Biology for FY 2002

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This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Microbial Biology for FY2002. The fellowship supports training and research on the basic biology of protozoan, microalgal, fungal, archaeal, bacterial and viral species that are not generally considered to be model organisms. Further, it provides opportunities for a recent doctoral recipients to obtain additional training in microbial biology, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden his/her scientific horizons beyond the research experiences during the undergraduate and graduate training. These fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including foreign locations. The research and training plan is entitled "Effects of environmental change on a generalist microbial pathogen: barley yellow dwarf virus in wild grass communities." A major challenge for microbial biology is understanding how environmental change affects microbes. Pathogenic microbes infecting multiple host species are influenced by altered host community composition. This research is testing how three other components of environmental change - nitrogen deposition, decreased species diversity, and land-use change - interact with host community composition to affect barley yellow dwarf virus, a generalist viral pathogen of grasses.