EAPSI: Reconstructing the evolutionary history of coral-microbe associations to identify microbial taxa important to the health of their coral host

EAPSI：重建珊瑚-微生物关联的进化历史，以确定对其珊瑚宿主健康重要的微生物类群

• 批准号: 1414820
• 负责人: Ryan McMinds
• 金额: $ 0.51万
• 依托单位: McMinds Ryan C
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-06-01 至 2015-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1414820&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAPSI; Reconstructing; evolutionary; history; coral

Coral reef ecosystems are in a state of rapid global decline. Research has suggested that many important stressors, including elevated sea temperatures, nutrient loading, and disease, may harm corals by disrupting their natural associations with bacteria and other microbes. Microbes as a whole have been shown to play important roles in coral health by providing essential nutrients, resisting pathogens, and even by cueing development. However, it has been challenging to identify the specific microbial taxa that provide these benefits. The health consequences to corals of stressor-mediated microbial community shifts are thus difficult to assess. This project will attempt to discover physiologically important microbes by reconstructing the evolutionary history of coral-microbe associations and identifying signatures of natural selection for particular associations. The research will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. David Bourne, a noted expert in coral microbiology, at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The diverse reefs of Australia harbor up to 15 of the 21 major coral clades, providing a unique opportunity to sample a broad selection of tissue from evolutionarily divergent but geographically concurrent coral species. Currently, the microbiomes of only 3 of these clades have received any significant attention. A baseline description of these communities, created using high throughput sequencing of marker-genes and metagenomes, will allow the identification of taxa that cluster within particular coral clades. This analysis will be performed by treating microbial taxa and functions as character traits that can be tested against a null model of neutral evolution. Future studies will be able to focus on these taxa as putative mutualists, whose disruption may reduce coral health. This research will eventually allow more accurate prediction of the environmental effects of various environmental stressors. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Australian Academy of Science.

珊瑚礁生态系统正处于全球快速衰退的状态。研究表明，许多重要的压力因素，包括海水温度升高、营养负荷和疾病，可能会破坏珊瑚与细菌和其他微生物的自然联系，从而损害珊瑚。微生物作为一个整体已被证明在珊瑚健康中发挥重要作用，提供必需的营养物质，抵抗病原体，甚至提示发育。然而，确定提供这些益处的特定微生物分类群一直具有挑战性。因此，压力源介导的微生物群落变化对珊瑚健康的影响难以评估。本项目将试图通过重建珊瑚-微生物关联的进化史和识别特定关联的自然选择特征来发现生理上重要的微生物。这项研究将与澳大利亚海洋科学研究所的著名珊瑚微生物学专家大卫·伯恩博士合作进行。澳大利亚多样的珊瑚礁孕育了21种主要珊瑚枝中的15种，为从进化上不同但地理上同时存在的珊瑚物种中取样提供了一个独特的机会。目前，这些分支中只有3个的微生物组得到了重要的关注。通过对标记基因和宏基因组进行高通量测序，对这些群落进行基线描述，将能够识别聚集在特定珊瑚枝中的分类群。该分析将通过将微生物分类群和功能作为可以针对中性进化的零模型进行测试的特征特征来进行。未来的研究将能够把这些分类群作为假定的共生者，它们的破坏可能会降低珊瑚的健康。这项研究最终将允许更准确地预测各种环境压力因素的环境影响。NSF EAPSI奖是与澳大利亚科学院合作资助的。