CAREER:Protist Nutritional Strategies in Permanently Stratified Antarctic Lakes

职业：永久分层的南极湖泊中的原生生物营养策略

• 批准号: 1056396
• 负责人: Rachael Morgan-Kiss
• 金额: $ 65.88万
• 依托单位: Miami University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-05-01 至 2017-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1056396&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Protist; Nutritional; Strategies; Permanently

This CAREER proposal will support an early career female PI to establish an integrated research and education program in the fields of polar biology and environmental microbiology, focusing on single-celled eukaryotes (protists) in high latitude ice-covered Antarctic lakes systems. Protists play important roles in energy flow and material cycling, and act as both primary producers (fixing inorganic carbon by photosynthesis) and consumers (preying on bacteria by phagotrophic digestion). The McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) located in Victoria Land, Antarctica, harbor microbial communities which are isolated in the unique aquatic ecosystem of perennially ice-capped lakes. The lakes support exclusively microbial consortia in chemically stratified water columns that are not influenced by seasonal mixing, allochthonous inputs, or direct human impact. This project will exploit permanently stratified biogeochemistry that is unique across the water columns of several MDV lakes to address gaps in our understanding of protist trophic function in aquatic food webs. The proposed research will examine (1) the impact of permanent biogeochemical gradients on protist trophic strategy, (2) the effect of major abiotic drivers (light and nutrients) on the distribution of two key mixotrophic and photoautotrophic protist species, and (3) the effect of episodic nutrient pulses on mixotroph communities in high latitude (ultraoligotrophic) MDV lakes versus low latitude (eutrophic) watersheds. The project will impact the fields of microbial ecology and environmental microbiology by combining results from field, laboratory and in situ incubation studies to synthesize new models for the protist trophic roles in the aquatic food web. The research component of this proposed project will be tightly integrated with the development of two new education activities designed to exploit the inherent excitement associated with polar biological research. The educational objectives are: 1) to establish a teaching module in polar biology in a core undergraduate course for microbiology majors; 2) to develop an instructional module to engage middle school girls in STEM disciplines. Undergraduates and middle school girls will also work with a doctoral student on his experiments in local Ohio watersheds.

该职业生涯提案将支持早期职业女性PI在极地生物学和环境微生物学领域建立综合研究和教育计划，重点关注高纬度冰盖南极湖泊系统中的单细胞真核生物（原生生物）。 原生生物在能量流动和物质循环中起着重要作用，它们既是初级生产者（通过光合作用固定无机碳），又是消费者（通过吞噬消化捕食细菌）。位于南极洲维多利亚地的麦克默多干谷（MDV）是一个微生物群落的港湾，它们被隔离在终年冰封的湖泊的独特水生生态系统中。湖泊支持专门的微生物财团在化学分层的水柱，不受季节性混合，外来输入，或直接的人类影响。该项目将利用永久分层的生物地球化学，这是唯一的几个MDV湖泊的水柱，以解决我们的理解在水生食物网中的原生生物营养功能的差距。 拟议的研究将检查（1）永久生物地球化学梯度对原生生物营养策略的影响，（2）主要的非生物驱动因素（光和营养）对两个关键的混合营养和光合自养原生生物物种分布的影响，以及（3）在高纬度（超寡营养）MDV湖泊与低纬度（富营养）流域的混合营养生物群落的影响。该项目将影响微生物生态学和环境微生物学领域，结合实地、实验室和原位培养研究的结果，合成水生食物网中原生生物营养作用的新模型。这一拟议项目的研究部分将与两个新的教育活动的发展紧密结合，旨在利用与极地生物研究相关的内在兴奋。教育目标是：1）在微生物学专业的核心本科课程中建立极地生物学教学模块; 2）开发一个教学模块，让中学女生参与STEM学科。本科生和中学女生还将与一名博士生一起在当地俄亥俄州流域进行实验。