EAGER: Microbial Populations as Biosignatures for Evaluating Long Term Effects of Urbanization

EAGER：微生物种群作为评估城市化长期影响的生物特征

• 批准号: 1536546
• 负责人: Janet Siefert
• 金额: $ 16.2万
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1536546&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Microbial; Populations; Biosignatures; Evaluating

This unique, high-risk, multidisciplinary study will bridge microbial ecology, environmental genomics, archaeology and urban ecology. The investigators posit that studies of soil microbial communities will reveal new insights into the activities of past civilizations, particularly at sites that have undergone repeated urbanization. Samples will be collected from soil profiles at an archaeological site in Turkey (Tel Ta'yinat) and Israel (Tel Gezer). DNA sequences will be recovered from soils and used to profile the microbial communities, and correlate them with other geological measurements. A model will be formulated using the multiple lines of evidence generated from this experimental regime, and informed by previous excavations and interpretations of the cultural history of the two sites. The research involves international collaborative work with colleagues in Australia and Canada, and at sample sites in Turkey and Israel. The project will also involve hands-on, process-oriented, guided inquiry learning field trips for undergraduate and high school students to archaeological sites in Montana and Wyoming. The project will broaden participation in science by supporting the involvement of an a faculty member at a Hispanic American-serving institution.Soil microorganisms provide a potentially tractable system to investigate repeated urbanization events. These communities, or "microbiomes" could provide new insight into the processes that shape and modify urban landscapes across time scales. This team hypothesizes that natural and anthropogenic processes localized at tells (archaeological mounds created by human occupation and abandonment) have produced measurable signatures from microbiomes, and that these microbiosignatures can be correlated to human impacts as reflected in urbanization and land use dynamics. Two Middle Eastern tells representing a gradient of duration of abandonment (4000 to 40 years) will be studied with two objectives in mind: i) characterization of each tell using compound-specific isotopic, biogeochemical, stoichiometric, and archaeological approaches in combination with novel biosignature/-omics approaches providing a description of the legacy of human occupation and use and ii) parameterization of a process-based model capable of defining the complex evolution of microbiosignatures to help predict human disturbance effects. The novel approach of this project addresses these questions: i) What secondary metabolite inventory is resident in tell soils that is not found in non-urbanized soils? ii) How does this inventory reflect the complex urbanization history of tells? iii) How can Hardin's Law of Human Ecology help frame the mass and energy balance dimensions of urban tells? Hardin's law states that total human impact on the ecosphere (here, each tell) is the product of the population and per capita impacts. The outcome will be the ability to define human carrying capacity (in terms of the occupation of each tell) which include the ecological footprint and boundary extent of each tell to that area of land provisioning ecological goods and services. The cross disciplinary team includes biologists, archaeologists, microbial ecologists, and a soil scientist and relies upon the integration of expertise across a broad range of disciplines to frame the question of urbanization impact in a novel historical, biological, and environmental context. The resulting product will be a microbiome-based protocol for understanding historical human impact in urbanization settings. This will transform our capabilities of predicting current and future environmental consequences of urbanization. The team will naturally impact a broad range of research communities as well as K-12 education through a summer workshop utilizing process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) techniques and archaeological sites in the Greater Yellowstone Area.

这项独特、高风险、多学科的研究将连接微生物生态学、环境基因组学、考古学和城市生态学。研究人员认为，对土壤微生物群落的研究将揭示对过去文明活动的新见解，特别是在经历过多次城市化的地区。样品将从土耳其（Tel Ta'yinat）和以色列（Tel Gezer）考古遗址的土壤剖面中采集。 DNA 序列将从土壤中回收并用于分析微生物群落，并将其与其他地质测量结果相关联。 将使用从该实验制度产生的多种证据来制定模型，并根据之前对两个遗址文化历史的挖掘和解释提供信息。 该研究涉及与澳大利亚和加拿大的同事以及在土耳其和以色列的样本点进行的国际合作。该项目还将包括为本科生和高中生前往蒙大拿州和怀俄明州的考古遗址进行实践性的、面向过程的、有指导的探究学习实地考察。该项目将通过支持西班牙裔美国人服务机构的一名教员的参与来扩大对科学的参与。土壤微生物提供了一个潜在的易于处理的系统来调查重复的城市化事件。这些群落或“微生物组”可以为跨时间尺度塑造和改变城市景观的过程提供新的见解。该团队假设，位于遗迹（人类占领和废弃而形成的考古土丘）的自然和人为过程已经产生了可测量的微生物特征，并且这些微生物特征可以与城市化和土地利用动态中反映的人类影响相关。将研究代表废弃持续时间梯度（4000 至 40 年）的两个中东遗迹，并牢记两个目标：i）使用化合物特异性同位素、生物地球化学、化学计量和考古学方法结合新颖的生物特征/组学方法对每个遗迹进行表征，提供对人类占领和使用遗产的描述；ii）对能够定义人类占领和使用遗产的基于过程的模型进行参数化。 微生物特征的复杂进化有助于预测人类干扰的影响。该项目的新颖方法解决了以下问题：i）哪些次生代谢物库存存在于非城市化土壤中而未发现的土壤中？ ii) 这个清单如何反映了复杂的城市化历史？ iii) 哈丁人类生态定律如何帮助构建城市故事的质量和能量平衡维度？哈丁定律指出，人类对生态圈的总体影响（这里是每个因素）是人口和人均影响的乘积。结果将是定义人类承载能力（根据每个小区的占用）的能力，其中包括生态足迹和每个小区到提供生态产品和服务的土地区域的边界范围。这个跨学科团队包括生物学家、考古学家、微生物生态学家和土壤科学家，依靠跨学科专业知识的整合，在新的历史、生物和环境背景下构建城市化影响问题。由此产生的产品将是一个基于微生物组的协议，用于了解人类对城市化环境的历史影响。这将改变我们预测城市化当前和未来环境后果的能力。该团队将通过利用面向过程的引导探究学习 (POGIL) 技术和大黄石地区考古遗址的夏季研讨会，自然地影响广泛的研究社区以及 K-12 教育。