CAREER: Integrating Bacterial Diversity into Environmental Change Research and Education

微生物在环境研究和教育中常常被忽视。这一差距阻碍了科学家预测生态系统将如何应对诸如养分输入、土地利用变化和全球变暖等人为干扰的能力。布朗大学的Jennifer Hughes博士获得了一笔职业补助金，用于开展将微生物多样性科学纳入环境教育的活动，并调查环境中细菌组合的组成对生态系统“运作”的影响程度--例如，它如何循环养分和分解废物。回答这个研究问题有很多障碍。例如，关于细菌群落的组成在地球不同地区类似栖息地类型内和之间的变化知之甚少，这使得决定如何采样细菌群落变得困难，更不用说研究它们如何影响环境了。此外，几乎没有开发出直接在野外对细菌群落进行实验的方法。为了应对这些挑战，休斯博士将把DNA测序等分子方法与传统的生态野外实验相结合。她将首先记录三大洲盐沼中细菌多样性的模式。然后，她将利用这些信息来测试细菌群落如何对氮沉积等干扰做出反应，以及细菌组成的变化是否会转化为生态系统过程的变化。这个项目将在沿海沼泽进行，这是一个实际上和比喻上处于各种环境、社会和政治问题的边界的生态系统。也许最重要的是，盐沼起到了过滤器的作用，缓冲了开放水域和经济上重要的渔业免受污染物的影响。与此同时，这些沼泽也是美国最受威胁的生态系统之一。休斯博士项目的结果是向预测进一步的沿海开发将如何改变沼泽的工作方式迈出了重要的一步。此外，这项研究将提供关于细菌在地理尺度上分布的最大、系统的数据集之一，为未来在其他生态系统类型中的采样和实验设计提供有用的基线。这项研究还包括在布朗大学开发一门新的以社区为基础的解决问题的课程，题为“微生物多样性与环境”，与当地一所高中的一门新的环境科学课程一起开发，并在两个小组之间进行联合实地考察。这些课程将加强布朗大学学生、当地社区和罗德岛机构之间的联系，因为学生的项目将与机构的科学家合作解决罗德岛州的环境问题。

Microbes are often ignored in environmental research and education. This gap hinders scientists' ability to predict how ecosystems will respond to anthropogenic disturbances such as nutrient inputs, land-use changes, and global warming. A CAREER grant has been awarded to Dr. Jennifer Hughes of Brown University to pursue activities that incorporate microbial diversity science into environmental education, and to investigate how much the composition of bacterial assemblages in the environment matters to the way an ecosystem "works" - for example, how it cycles nutrients and decomposes wastes. There are many hurdles to answering this research question. For instance, little is known about how the composition of bacterial communities varies within and across similar habitat types in different regions of the planet, making it difficult to decide how to sample bacterial communities, let alone study how they affect the environment. In addition, there are few methods developed to conduct experiments on bacterial communities directly in the field. To address these challenges, Dr. Hughes will combine molecular methods such as DNA sequencing with traditional ecological field experiments. She will first document patterns of bacterial diversity across salt marshes on three continents. She will then use this information to test how bacterial communities respond to disturbances such as nitrogen deposition and whether changes in bacterial composition translate into changes in ecosystem processes.This project will be conducted in coastal marshes, an ecosystem that is literally and figuratively at the boundary of a variety of environmental, social, and political problems. Perhaps most importantly, salt marshes act as filters, buffering open waters and economically important fisheries from pollutants. At the same time, these marshes are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the United States. The results of Dr. Hughes' project are an important step towards predicting how further coastal development will change the way marshes work. In addition, the research will provide one of the largest, systematic datasets on bacterial distribution across geographic scales, providing a useful baseline for future sampling and experimental design in other ecosystem types. The research also includes the development of a new community based, problem-solving course entitled "Microbial Diversity and the Environment" at Brown University developed in tandem with a new environmental science course at a local high school, with joint field trips between the two groups. The courses will strengthen the connections between Brown students, the local community and Rhode Island agencies, as the students' projects will address environmental problems in Rhode Island in collaboration with agency scientists.