MIP: Addressing the Role of Community Ecological Interactions in Population Niche Evolution along Hot Spring Thermal Gradients

MIP：解决群落生态相互作用在沿温泉热梯度的种群生态位演化中的作用

• 批准号: 0801999
• 负责人: Scott Miller
• 金额: $ 49.53万
• 依托单位: University of Montana
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-08-01 至 2013-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0801999&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MIP; Addressing; Role; Community; Ecological

Developing an understanding of the factors that determine the origins and distribution of biological diversity on the planet is a fundamental goal of ecology and evolution. Whereas the potential distribution of a group of organisms is determined solely by its evolved limits of environmental tolerance, its actual realized distribution also depends upon the outcome of its interactions with other community members. A grant has been awarded to Dr. Scott R. Miller of The University of Montana to investigate how interactions among competing photosynthetic microorganisms (cyanobacteria and green non-sulfur bacteria) have shaped their realized distribution patterns along two well-characterized hot spring environmental gradients (White Creek, Rabbit Creek) in Yellowstone NP. Project 1 integrates environmental gene expression analyses with laboratory physiology experiments to address the central tenet of evolutionary theory that competing species evolve to reduce competition by testing whether green non-sulfur bacteria exhibit a genetically-programmed shift in resource utilization in regions of strong distribution overlap with competing cyanobacteria. Project 2 combines genetic and physiological approaches to address why the different springs differ in the abundance of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus B: the realized distribution of this cyanobacterium is twice as broad at Rabbit Creek compared with White Creek. It will be determined whether these differences in realized distribution are the result of different amounts of genetically-determined variation in temperature performance among Synechococcus B between springs, and whether either limitations in the ability of organisms to migrate between springs or exclusion by competitors contribute to these differences.The questions of how ecological variation is distributed within and between communities, and how ecological interactions themselves contribute to the evolved traits of competing organisms, are longstanding in ecology and evolution, but progress on these questions has been historically hampered for microorganisms by technological limitations. Addressing them has major implications for our understanding of how microbial communities are assembled and function, and of how they may respond to environmental change. Together, these projects promise fresh insights into these questions from a novel microbial perspective. The research plan thereby addresses key program goals of integrating microbial physiology and genomic diversity with environmental processes to determine the mechanistic basis of biotic interactions within communities and to reveal the patterns of microbial distribution in time and space. The award enables the integration of research and education through support for both graduate and undergraduate student training, as well as through the PI?s Biology of Yellowstone Hot Springs course, a sophomore-level offering which uses these hot springs as a natural teaching laboratory to provide a hands-on microbiological research experience. Outreach components include a continued focus on these microbial communities in the PI?s annual field-based course for college and high school instructors on the biology of Yellowstone hot springs through the NSF National Chautauqua Workshop summer program.

了解决定地球上生物多样性起源和分布的因素是生态学和进化的基本目标。尽管一个生物群体的潜在分布完全取决于其进化的环境耐受极限，但其实际实现的分布也取决于其与其他社区成员相互作用的结果。 斯科特·R博士获得了一笔赠款。蒙大拿大学的米勒研究如何相互竞争的光合微生物（蓝藻和绿色非硫细菌）之间的相互作用已经形成了他们的实现分布模式沿着两个特征良好的温泉环境梯度（白色溪，兔子溪）在黄石国家公园。项目1将环境基因表达分析与实验室生理学实验相结合，以解决进化理论的核心原则，即通过测试绿色非硫细菌是否在与竞争蓝藻的强分布重叠的区域中表现出遗传程序化的资源利用转变，从而使竞争物种进化以减少竞争。项目2结合了遗传和生理学方法，以解决为什么不同的泉水在蓝藻聚球藻B丰度上存在差异：与白色溪相比，兔溪的蓝藻分布范围是其两倍。 将确定这些在实际分布中的差异是否是由于聚球藻B在春季之间的温度表现中的不同数量的遗传决定的变化的结果，以及生物体在春季之间迁移的能力的限制或竞争对手的排斥是否有助于这些差异。以及生态相互作用本身如何促进竞争生物的进化特征，在生态学和进化中由来已久，但由于技术限制，这些问题的进展一直阻碍着微生物。 解决这些问题对我们理解微生物群落如何组装和发挥作用以及它们如何应对环境变化具有重大意义。总之，这些项目有望从一个新的微生物角度对这些问题有新的见解。因此，该研究计划解决了将微生物生理学和基因组多样性与环境过程相结合的关键计划目标，以确定社区内生物相互作用的机制基础，并揭示微生物在时间和空间中的分布模式。该奖项使研究和教育的整合，通过支持研究生和本科生培训，以及通过PI？黄石温泉的生物学课程，一个走廊级的产品，使用这些温泉作为一个自然的教学实验室，提供一个动手的微生物研究经验。 外展部分包括继续关注PI中的这些微生物群落？美国国家科学基金会通过国家肖托夸夸研讨会暑期项目，为大学和高中教师提供黄石温泉生物学方面的年度实地课程。