OCE-PRF: Integrating high-throughput plankton imaging and DNA meta-barcoding to elucidate the prevalence and oceanographic determinants of diatom parasitism

OCE-PRF：整合高通量浮游生物成像和 DNA 元条形码来阐明硅藻寄生的流行率和海洋学决定因素

• 批准号: 2205596
• 负责人: Dylan Catlett
• 金额: $ 37.5万
• 依托单位: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-12-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2205596&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: OCE; PRF; Integrating; throughput; plankton

Diatoms, a group of algae, play an outsized role in supporting the productive marine food webs and fisheries that coastal communities rely on for food and other resources. Diatom “epidemics” caused by parasitic plankton have been observed at times and likely have major impacts on marine food webs. However, the difficult and time-consuming methods traditionally used to observe diatom parasitism have limited our ability to understand how common these events are as well as the environmental conditions that promote infection. This project will leverage recent technological advances in plankton imaging and DNA sequencing to develop efficient approaches that will enable sustained observations of diatom parasitism across large areas of the coastal ocean. These approaches will be applied to existing DNA sequence and plankton image data sets within the economically important Northeast U.S. Shelf ecosystem to determine the importance of diatom parasitism in this ecosystem. This work will advance science and the field of biological oceanography by generating foundational knowledge of diatom parasitism in the coastal ocean. This will enable improvements in efforts to forecast changes in marine ecosystems in response to climate change, thus advancing the prosperity, welfare, and security of the nation’s coastal communities. This project will also broaden participation in ocean science by providing paid, immersive research experiences for two undergraduate students with additional opportunities to attend and present their work at scientific conferences and to contribute to scientific publications. An early-career postdoctoral researcher will gain invaluable professional experience designing and implementing both the research and a strategic mentorship plan targeted toward equitably recruiting and supporting the career advancement of the two undergraduate researchers. Specifically, this project will integrate large DNA meta-barcoding and plankton imaging data sets to develop a generic, high-throughput approach to infer and validate interactions between diatom hosts and eukaryotic nano-parasites, and subsequently estimate infection prevalence for specific host-parasite pairs. This approach will be applicable to other aquatic ecosystems and will have the potential to be adapted to the study of other types of interactions amongst the plankton. Further, it will contribute to ongoing efforts to optimize analysis of DNA meta-barcoding, plankton imaging, and other complex, observational, biological oceanographic data sets, and accelerate their use in addressing novel scientific questions. Application of this approach to extensive image and DNA meta-barcoding data sets available on the Northeast U.S. Shelf will enable quantitation of population-specific and aggregated community-level diatom infection prevalence and reveal the prevalence and spatiotemporal distribution of infection events. Population-specific and community-aggregated infection dynamics will then be related to physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic processes to begin to disentangle the relative importance of population-specific physiological niches and hypothesized community-level forcings in governing diatom-parasite interactions from local and event scales to regional and seasonal or longer scales. Overall, this project will establish a framework for integrating diatom parasitism into predictive pelagic food web models and assist in forecasting the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on the structure and function of marine 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.

硅藻是一种藻类，在支持沿海社区赖以获取食物和其他资源的生产性海洋食物网和渔业方面发挥着巨大作用。有时会观察到寄生浮游生物引起的硅藻“流行病”，并可能对海洋食物网产生重大影响。然而，传统上用于观察硅藻寄生的困难且耗时的方法限制了我们了解这些事件的普遍性以及促进感染的环境条件的能力。该项目将利用浮游生物成像和 DNA 测序方面的最新技术进步来开发有效的方法，从而能够对沿海大片区域的硅藻寄生进行持续观测。这些方法将应用于具有重要经济意义的美国东北部大陆架生态系统内现有的 DNA 序列和浮游生物图像数据集，以确定硅藻寄生在该生态系统中的重要性。这项工作将通过产生沿海海洋硅藻寄生的基础知识来推进科学和生物海洋学领域的发展。这将有助于更好地预测海洋生态系统因气候变化而发生的变化，从而促进国家沿海社区的繁荣、福利和安全。该项目还将通过为两名本科生提供付费、沉浸式研究体验，以及参加科学会议和展示其工作以及为科学出版物做出贡献的额外机会，扩大对海洋科学的参与。早期职业博士后研究员将获得设计和实施研究和战略指导计划的宝贵专业经验，该计划旨在公平地招募和支持两名本科研究人员的职业发展。具体来说，该项目将整合大型DNA元条形码和浮游生物成像数据集，以开发一种通用的高通量方法来推断和验证硅藻宿主和真核纳米寄生虫之间的相互作用，并随后估计特定宿主-寄生虫对的感染流行率。这种方法将适用于其他水生生态系统，并且有可能适用于浮游生物之间其他类型相互作用的研究。此外，它将有助于持续优化 DNA 元条形码、浮游生物成像和其他复杂的观测生物海洋学数据集的分析，并加速它们在解决新科学问题中的应用。将此方法应用于美国东北部大陆架上的广泛图像和 DNA 元条形码数据集，将能够定量特定人群和聚合社区水平的硅藻感染流行率，并揭示感染事件的流行率和时空分布。然后，特定人群和群落聚集的感染动态将与物理、化学和生物海洋学过程相关联，以开始理清特定人群的生理生态位和假设的群落水平强迫在控制从局部和事件尺度到区域和季节性或更长时间尺度的硅藻-寄生虫相互作用方面的相对重要性。总体而言，该项目将建立一个框架，将硅藻寄生纳入预测性中上层食物网模型，并协助预测人为气候变化对海洋生态系统结构和功能的影响。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值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

Temperature dependence of parasitoid infection and abundance of a diatom revealed by automated imaging and classification.

自动成像和分类揭示了寄生虫感染的温度依赖性和硅藻的丰度。

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2303356120
• 发表时间: 2023-07-11
• 期刊: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• 影响因子: 11.1
• 作者: Catlett, Dylan;Peacock, Emily E.;Crockford, E. Taylor;Futrelle, Joe;Batchelder, Sidney;Stevens, Bethany L. F.;Gast, Rebecca J.;Zhang, Weifeng G.;Sosik, Heidi M.
• 通讯作者: Sosik, Heidi M.

Abundance and parasitoid infection dynamics of Guinardia delicatula on the Northeast U.S. Shelf from 2006 to 2022 determined by Imaging FlowCytobot.

由 Imaging FlowCytobot 确定 2006 年至 2022 年美国东北部陆架上的 Guinardia delicatula 的丰度和拟寄生物感染动态。

• DOI: 10.6073/pasta/7c43f9e037325e70ee736b7782327dd8
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Environmental Data Initiative
• 作者: Catlett, Dylan;Peacock, Emily E;Crockford, E. Taylor;Sosik, Heidi M
• 通讯作者: Sosik, Heidi M