Collaborative Research: Ecology and Evolution of Microbial Interactions in a Changing Ocean

合作研究：不断变化的海洋中微生物相互作用的生态学和进化

• 批准号: 1851085
• 负责人: James Morris
• 金额: $ 51.64万
• 依托单位: University of Alabama at Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-03-01 至 2024-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1851085&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Ecology; Evolution; Microbial

Carbon dioxide released from fossil fuels is causing the ocean to become more acidic. Much attention has been given to how this will affect shelled animals like corals, but acidification also affects the algae that form the base of the ocean food chain. It is possible that future algal communities will look very different than they do today, with potentially negative consequences for fisheries, recreation, and climate. Alternatively, it is possible that these algae will be able to adapt rapidly enough to avoid the worst of it. This study looks at algae adapting to acidification in real time in the lab, focusing on "marketplace" interactions between the algae and the bacteria they live alongside. The researchers also go to sea to learn whether adaptations from the lab experiments are beneficial under real-world conditions. Ultimately, this project is helping scientists better understand how the ocean's most important and most overlooked organisms will respond to the changes humans are causing in their habitat. The researchers also use their scientific work to create fun educational opportunities from grade school to college, including agar art classes where students learn about microbial ecology by "painting" with freshly-isolated ocean bacteria.The effect of ocean acidification on calcifying organisms has been well-studied, but less is known about how changing pH will affect phytoplankton. Previous work showed that the mutualistic interaction between the globally abundant cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus and its "helper" bacterium Alteromonas broke down under projected future CO2 conditions, leading to a strong decrease in the fitness of Prochlorococcus. It is possible that such interspecies interactions between microbes are important for many ecological processes, but a lack of understanding of how these interactions evolve makes it difficult to predict how important they are. This project is using laboratory evolution experiments to discover how evolution shapes the interactions between bacteria and algae like Prochlorococcus, and how these co-evolutionary dynamics might influence the biogeochemical processes that shape Earth's climate. Four research cruises to the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series are also planned to study how natural algal/bacterial communities respond to acidification, and whether evolved microbes from laboratory experiments have a competitive advantage in complex, natural communities exposed to elevated CO2. The ultimate goal of this project is to gain a mechanistic understanding of microbial interactions that can be used to inform models of Earth's oceans and biological feedbacks on global climate.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

化石燃料释放的二氧化碳正在导致海洋变得更加酸性。这将如何影响珊瑚等贝壳动物已经引起了人们的极大关注，但酸化也会影响构成海洋食物链基础的藻类。未来的藻类群落可能会与今天截然不同，对渔业、娱乐和气候产生潜在的负面影响。或者，这些藻类有可能能够足够快地适应，避免最糟糕的情况发生。这项研究着眼于藻类在实验室中实时适应酸化，重点是藻类与它们生活在一起的细菌之间的“市场”相互作用。研究人员还出海了解实验室实验的适应在现实世界条件下是否有益。最终，这个项目将帮助科学家更好地了解海洋中最重要、最被忽视的生物将如何应对人类在其栖息地造成的变化。研究人员还利用他们的科学工作创造了从小学到大学的有趣的教育机会，包括琼脂艺术课，在那里，学生们通过用新分离的海洋细菌来学习微生物生态学。海洋酸化对钙化生物的影响已经得到了很好的研究，但关于pH值变化将如何影响浮游植物的了解较少。先前的工作表明，在预计未来的二氧化碳条件下，全球丰富的蓝藻原氯球菌与其“助手”细菌Alteromonas之间的相互作用被打破，导致原氯球菌的适合度大幅下降。微生物之间的这种种间相互作用对许多生态过程可能是重要的，但由于缺乏对这些相互作用如何演变的了解，因此很难预测它们的重要性。该项目正在利用实验室进化实验来发现进化如何塑造细菌和藻类(如原氯球菌)之间的相互作用，以及这些共同进化动态可能如何影响塑造地球气候的生物地球化学过程。还计划对百慕大大西洋时间序列进行四次研究，以研究天然藻类/细菌群落对酸化的反应，以及来自实验室实验的进化微生物在暴露于高浓度二氧化碳的复杂自然群落中是否具有竞争优势。这个项目的最终目标是从机制上了解微生物的相互作用，这些微生物的相互作用可以用来为地球海洋模型和全球气候的生物反馈提供信息。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

What is the hologenome concept of evolution?

进化的全基因组概念是什么？

• DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.14385.1
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: F1000Research
• 作者: Morris, J. Jeffrey

Structure and Long-Term Stability of the Microbiome in Diverse Diatom Cultures

• DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.00269-21
• 发表时间: 2021-09-01
• 期刊: MICROBIOLOGY SPECTRUM
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Barreto Filho, Marcelo Malisano;Walker, Melissa;Morris, J. Jeffrey
• 通讯作者: Morris, J. Jeffrey