IRES: Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Microbiology and Biogeosciences of Siberian Deep Subsurface Permafrost

第1部分美国国家科学基金会IRES基金将为本科生提供丰富的微生物学和生物地球科学方面的国际研究机会，通过他们对先前在西伯利亚北极东北部采集的独特的5000-300万年前的永久冻土沉积物样本的检查。在为期三个暑假的课程中，12名学生将在俄罗斯科学院土壤科学物理化学和生物问题研究所(IPBPSS)的土壤结晶学实验室度过总共6周，并在IPBPSS和田纳西诺克斯维尔大学的学术导师的监督下完成他们的研究项目。该项目将为这些学生提供包括教育指导和文化启蒙在内的综合研究体验，同时加强美国和俄罗斯科学家之间的研究合作。2永久冻土约占北半球地球大陆表面的25%(2300万平方公里)，但其微生物区系在很大程度上仍未被探索。埋藏在冻土中数百万年的微生物群落代表着一座金矿。编码参与生物合成和生物降解途径的低温生物催化剂的基因。参与IRES项目的学生的研究项目将致力于研究地下深层冻土沉积物中的生物多样性，以及微生物多样性、功能活动和物理化学性质之间的相互作用。除了传统的微生物学和分析方法外，拟议的研究还将应用各种最先进的技术，如定量聚合酶链式反应、DNA杂交、地球化学分析和元基因组学。这项研究将填补关于西伯利亚永久冻土的分类和功能多样性的空白，并有助于国际上对永久冻土生态系统的了解。来自不同冻土层的组学数据的广泛传播和可获得性，将为我们理解极地地区关于永冻土退化及其对全球变暖的影响的微生物生态提供相当多的知识。

Part 1This NSF IRES grant will provide undergraduate students with a rich international research opportunity in both microbiology and biogeosciences through their examination of unique 5,000-3,000,000 year-old permafrost sediment samples previously collected in the Northeast Siberian Arctic. Twelve students over the course of three summers will spend a total of six weeks at the Soil Cryology Laboratory of the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems of Soil Sciences (IPBPSS) within the Russian Academy of Sciences and complete their research projects under the supervision of academic mentors from both IPBPSS and University of Tennessee Knoxville. The project will give these students an integrated research experience including educational guidance and cultural enlightenment, while strengthening research collaboration between U.S. and Russian scientists.Part 2Permafrost occupies approximately 25% (23 million km²) of the Earth's continental surface in the Northern Hemisphere, yet its microbiota remains largely unexplored. The microbial communities embedded within permafrost for millions of years represent a ?gold mine? of genes encoding for low-temperature biocatalysts involved in biosynthetic and biodegradative pathways. Research projects of the students participating in this IRES program will be devoted to studying the biodiversity, as well as the interactions between microbial diversity, functional activity and physicochemical properties, within deep subsurface permafrost sediments. The proposed research will apply various state-of-the-art techniques such as qPCR, DNA hybridization, geochemical analyses, and metagenomics, in addition to traditional microbiological and analytical approaches. This research will fill in gaps regarding the taxonomic and functional diversity of the Siberian permafrost and contribute to the international knowledge about permafrost ecosystems. The broad dissemination and availability of metagenomic data from different permafrost strata will supply considerable knowledge to our understanding of the microbial ecology of polar regions with respect to both permafrost degradation and its impact on global warming.