Dimensions: Collaborative Research: Microbial seed banks: processes and patterns of dormancy-driven biodiversity

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Microorganisms are the most abundant and diverse taxa on Earth. Despite their ecological and economic importance, it is unclear what maintains the diversity of microbial communities, what adaptive traits allow microorganisms to contend with novel or changing environments, and what accounts for their exceptional spatial distributions. Recent studies suggest that the ability to enter a reversible state of reduced metabolic activity or dormancy ('seed bank') may be central to answering these questions. This project focuses on the seed bank dynamics of microbial communities. In addition to elucidating key processes and feedbacks that contribute to the maintenance of microbial diversity, the project has practical implications for understanding challenges associated with antibiotic resistance, pest outbreaks, and the restoration of managed ecosystems. Broader impacts of the project include the development of a capstone-research experience for undergraduate students at a Principally Undergraduate Institution, a summer research program for high school students from under-represented groups, an open-source individual-based modeling software package, and public outreach via engagement with science museums. The overarching goals of this research project are to identify the key ecological and evolutionary processes that generate and maintain microbial biodiversity, and to understand how this diversity in turn influences ecosystem processes. These goals will be addressed by focusing on how and why dormancy varies among microbes as a result of life history trade-offs. Combined with novel insight into dormancy-driven communication networks, the research will determine how seed bank dynamics affect the function and geographic patterns of microbial diversity. Three major objectives pertaining to dormancy and the diversity of microbial communities will be addressed: 1) Test for life history tradeoffs between dormancy and physiological and genomic characteristics by comparing survivorship during prolonged dormancy across a phylogenetically diverse collection of soil bacteria using a traits-based approach, 2) Test predictions regarding the nature of dormancy as a cell-cell communicated response that affects pathogen suppression, plant-soil feedbacks, and ecosystem processes using signaling molecules to directly manipulate microbial seed banks, 3) Develop and test theoretical predictions regarding the contribution of seed banks to geographic patterns of taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity using communities of soil bacteria from systems with contrasting disturbance histories.