NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: Untangling the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that shape gut microbiomes: Integrating behavior, microbes, and ecology

这一行动为NSF 2019财年生物学博士后研究奖学金-使用生物收藏进行研究-提供资金。该奖学金支持将以创新方式利用生物收藏的研究员的研究和培训。肠道微生物群是生活在动物胃肠道中的细菌群落。微生物群有助于塑造不同天、不同季节、不同生命周期和不同世代的寄主生活。圈养野生动物，如动物园或研究设施中的野生动物，提供了探索肠道微生物群如何控制的机会；然而，与实验室模型相比，它们仍然是未开发的资源。杜克狐猴中心(DLC)的生物收藏，包括一个活的灵长类群体和一个组织库，非常适合微生物组研究。这位研究员将利用这些生物收集来测试饮食和特定的树叶消费量如何塑造灵长类动物中食叶、水果和杂食动物的肠道微生物群。归根结底，这个项目的价值有两重：(1)它将创造关于是什么控制灵长类肠道微生物群的知识，对人类医疗保健和野生动物保护具有潜在的应用价值；(2)通过不同的赞助，该项目将促进跨科学学科的对话，并将为研究界开发资源。该项目将使用生物收集来检验这样一个假设，即与其他喂养策略相比，叶更强烈地驱动宿主-微生物群的共同适应。在三项研究中，这位研究员将探索叶的消耗如何不同地驱动食叶狐猴、杂食狐猴和食果狐猴的肠道微生物群动态。第一项研究使用储存的样本来比较物种胃肠道的微生物区系，第二项和第三项研究使用活群体，第二项研究询问自由选择觅食如何影响季节性尺度上的觅食和微生物生态，第三项研究使用饮食控制来确定纤维素和单宁如何在每日尺度上调节群落。除了标准的微生物组方法，在与赞助商克莱顿和埃利一起培训住院医生期间，该研究员将通过叶绿体测序、同位素和蜡烷分析从粪便样本中开发饮食重建的度量标准，并通过厌氧和实验培养开发微生物组动态的度量标准。该项目预计将产生研究和审查风格的出版物，以及方法说明。这位研究员将在整个过程中指导本科生，并与杜克狐猴中心的教育和传播部门合作，为在校儿童、公众和社交媒体受众创造新材料。该奖项反映了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。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2019, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. The gut microbiome is the community of bacteria that lives in an animal's gastrointestinal tracts. The microbiome helps shape the lives of their hosts across days, seasons, lifetimes, and generations. Captive wildlife, like those housed at zoos or research facilities, provide the opportunity to explore how the gut microbiome is controlled; however, compared to laboratory models, they remain untapped resources. The Biological Collections at the Duke Lemur Center (DLC), including a living primate colony and a tissue bank, are well suited to microbiome research. The fellow will use these biological collections to test how diet, and the specific consumption of foliage, shape the gut microbiome across leaf eaters, fruit eaters, and omnivores in primates. Ultimately, the value of this project is twofold: (1) It will create knowledge about what controls the gut microbiome in primates, with potential applied value to human healthcare and wildlife conservation; and (2) Through diverse sponsorship, the project will stimulate dialogue across scientific disciplines and will lead to the development of resources for the research community.The project will use Biological Collections to test the hypothesis that, compared to other feeding strategies, folivory more strongly drives host-microbiome coadaptation. In three studies, the fellow will probe how foliage consumption differentially drives gut-microbiome dynamics across folivorous, omnivorous, and frugivorous lemurs. Whereas the first study uses banked samples to compare microbiota along the species' gastrointestinal tracts, the second and third studies use the living colony, with study two asking how free-choice foraging shapes feeding and microbial ecology across seasonal scales, and study three using dietary manipulations to determine how cellulose and tannins regulate communities across daily scales. In addition to standard microbiome methods, during training residencies with sponsors Clayton and Eley, the fellow will develop metrics of dietary reconstruction from fecal samples via chloroplast sequencing, isotopic and wax-alkane analysis, and of microbiome dynamics via anaerobic and experimental culturing. The project is expected to yield research and review-style publications, and methodological descriptions. The fellow will mentor undergraduates throughout and work with the Duke Lemur Center's Education and Communication departments to create new materials for school children, the general public, and the social-media audience.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.