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

微生物是地球上最丰富、最多样的类群。尽管微生物在生态和经济上具有重要意义，但目前尚不清楚是什么维持了微生物群落的多样性，哪些适应性特征使微生物能够与新的或不断变化的环境竞争，以及是什么解释了它们特殊的空间分布。最近的研究表明，进入代谢活动减少或休眠的可逆状态(种子库)的能力可能是回答这些问题的核心。本项目的重点是微生物群落的种子库动态。除了阐明有助于维持微生物多样性的关键过程和反馈外，该项目还对了解与抗生素耐药性、虫害暴发和恢复受管理的生态系统相关的挑战具有实际意义。该项目的更广泛影响包括在一个以本科为主的机构为本科生开发顶峰研究体验，为来自代表性不足群体的高中生开展暑期研究计划，一个基于个人的开源建模软件包，以及通过与科学博物馆的接触进行公众宣传。这项研究项目的首要目标是确定产生和维持微生物生物多样性的关键生态和进化过程，并了解这种多样性反过来如何影响生态系统过程。这些目标将通过关注微生物休眠如何以及为什么随着生活史的权衡而变化来解决。结合对休眠驱动的通信网络的新见解，这项研究将确定种子库动态如何影响微生物多样性的功能和地理模式。与休眠和微生物群落多样性有关的三个主要目标将涉及：1)通过使用基于特征的方法比较在系统发育多样化的土壤细菌集合中长时间休眠期间的存活率，测试休眠与生理和基因组特征之间的生活史权衡；2)测试休眠的性质作为影响病原体抑制、植物-土壤反馈和使用信号分子直接操纵微生物种子库的生态系统过程的细胞-细胞交流反应的性质的预测；3)利用具有相反干扰历史的系统中的土壤细菌群落，开发和测试关于种子库对分类和系统发育多样性的地理格局的贡献的理论预测。

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.