NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in Japan

这一行动资助阿肯色大学的杰弗里·扎恩于2013年夏天在日本筑波的国家农业环境科学研究所开展了一个生物科学研究项目。该项目的标题是“在一个变暖的星球上，微生物相互作用对土壤碳循环的重要性”。主持该项目的科学家是Rota Wagai博士。这个项目利用不同温度处理下自然产生的细菌种群的微观宇宙，研究了微生物相互作用对土壤碳动态变化的影响。土壤阿米巴是一种数量丰富且普遍存在的细菌捕食者，在调节细菌种群方面发挥着重要的作用，但尚未得到充分的研究，而细菌种群对全球碳循环非常重要。现有的气候变化模型已经开始研究微生物群落在促进或减缓全球变暖方面可能发挥的作用，但它们还没有包括关于微生物群落总体结构如何影响这些预测的信息。在完全析因实验中，普通土壤变形虫用于复制完整的灭菌土芯，并接种自然产生的细菌。通过对二氧化碳排放量的频繁测量，可以调查微生物捕食和食物网复杂性对细菌介导的气候变化反应的重要性。EAPSI奖学金的广泛影响包括为研究员提供美国以外的第一手研究经验；对各自地点的科学、科学政策和科学基础设施的介绍；以及对社会、文化和语言的定位。这些活动符合NSF的目标，即在其科学家、工程师和教育工作者的职业生涯早期为国际合作进行教育，从而确保拥有一支具有全球意识的美国科学队伍。此外，这一经验和这项研究的结果将通过同行评议出版物、公共研讨会和电台采访以及面向中学生的多语种在线博客广泛传播。该博客将记录去日本旅行和了解日本文化的经历，但将重点放在国际合作和文化交流的重要性上。它的设计将使学生在教育的关键时刻参与到发现和科学过程的兴奋中，同时分享对另一种文化的见解。

This action funds Geoffrey Zahn of the University of Arkansas to conduct a research project in Biological Sciences during the summer of 2013 at the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan. The project title is "The Importance of Microbial Interactions to Soil Carbon Cycling on a Warming Planet." The host scientist is Dr. Rota Wagai.This project examines the effect of microbial interactions on changes to soil carbon dynamics in response to warming conditions using microcosms with naturally-occuring bacterial populations under different temperature treatments. Soil amoebae are abundant and ubiquitous bacterial predators that play an important, yet understudied, role in regulating bacterial populations, which are vastly important for global carbon cycling. Existing climate change models have begun to examine the functions that microbial communities may play in contributing to or mitigating global warming, but they do not yet include information about how total microbial community structure impacts these predictions. Common soil amoebae are used in replicates of intact sterilized soil cores along with inoculations of naturally-occuring bacteria in a full factorial experiment. Frequent measurements of carbon dioxide emissions allow an investigation of the importance of microbial predation and food web complexity on bacterially-mediated responses to climate change.Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Furthermore, this experience and the results of this research will be broadly disseminated through peer-reviewed publication, public seminars and radio interviews, and through a multi-lingual online blog geared towards middle school students. The blog will document the experience of traveling to Japan and learning about Japanese culture, but will focus on the importance of international collaborations and cultural exchanges. It will be designed to engage students at a critical point in their education with the excitement of discovery and the scientific process, while sharing insights into another culture.