Research Initiation Awards: Tidal flow drives the viral community composition in the soil of intertidal zones

研究启动奖为历史悠久的黑人学院和大学的初级和职业生涯中期教师提供支持，他们正在建立新的研究计划或重新定向和重建现有计划。预计该奖项有助于进一步提高教师的研究能力和有效性，改善所在机构的研究和教学，并让本科生参与研究经验。该项目旨在了解病毒对全球系统的影响及其对环境的影响。该项目的总体目标是通过直接计数、分离病毒和宿主(分枝杆菌)和测序方法，了解切萨皮克湾地区潮间带内病毒的多样性和潜力。预期结果将有助于在土壤和海洋环境的实际交汇处填补关于病毒群落生物多样性的知识空白，重点放在切萨皮克湾河口不同水系的潮间带。实验方法将结合实地工作、环境样本收集、基于生物学的湿法实验室实验、数据分析、元基因组学、基因组学和生物信息学的跨学科方法。该方法将分离、注释和分析分枝杆菌噬菌体基因组，并了解不同季节潮间带的病毒多样性。这项工作的全球影响将有助于理解人为因素如何促进环境生态系统的变化。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。

Research Initiation Awards provide support for junior and mid-career faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who are building new research programs or redirecting and rebuilding existing programs. It is expected that the award helps to further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, improves research and teaching at the home institution, and involves undergraduate students in research experiences. The project seeks to understand the effect of viruses on the global systems and their impact on the environment.The overall goal of this project is to understand the diversity and potential of viruses within intertidal zones in the Chesapeake Bay area using direct counts, isolates of viruses and hosts (mycobacteria) and sequencing approaches. The expected outcomes will contribute to the gap of knowledge on the biodiversity of the viral community in the physical intersection of soil and marine environments with an emphasis on the intertidal zone of different river systems in the Chesapeake Bay Estuary. The experimental methods will incorporate an interdisciplinary approach combining field work, environmental sample collection, biology based wet-lab experimentation, data analysis, metagenomics, genomics and bioinformatics. The approach will be to isolate, annotate and analyze mycobacteriophage genomes and to understand the viral diversity of the intertidal zone in different seasons. The global impact of this work will contribute to the understanding of how anthropogenic factors may contribute to the changes in environmental ecosystems.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.