Dimensions: Collaborative Research: Functional and genomic diversity in vitamin B1 metabolism and impacts on plankton networks and productivity

从人类到微生物，许多生物体都需要通过食物或直接从环境中摄取维生素来获得维生素。 维生素对个体生物很重要，但它们也有可能改变整个生态系统的健康和生产力。 该项目将探索海洋食物链基础的维生素B1（硫胺素）的生产和消费。它还将研究不同微生物在代谢硫胺素和类似分子时可能和谐和/或竞争性相互作用的方式。 对数据的网络分析将有助于确定这些物质在控制海水中微生物生物多样性和光合作用方面的作用，以及微生物对不断变化的海洋条件的反应。 该项目还将培训博士后学者，研究生和本科生，并将支持教师专业发展计划，为来自农村地区的低收入，历史上代表性不足和其他教育服务不足的学生准备高中毕业，入学并在高等教育中取得成功，并追求STEM职业。 浮游生物进化出多种策略来获取硫胺素，包括从环境中回收硫胺素相关化合物。 该项目将：1）调查代谢适应有关的硫胺素在浮游生物中，使用比较基因组学和进化（高通量DNA测序）; 2）测试重要的功能预测使用文化和分析化学（恒化器和质谱）; 3）测量浮游生物的相互作用在自然和人工刺激的浮游植物水华。这项调查将与北大西洋两项主要实地活动的海洋学考察结合起来。将使用几种计算方法来解释微生物群落结构的变化，生物化学，基因组和分类多样性在维持当今海洋生物多样性模式中的作用，以及潜在的未来海洋和微生物网络。硫胺素代谢途径的具体方面将在理解微生物化学相互作用的背景下进行探索。这些不同层次的生物多样性和硫胺素循环将在生产性浮游植物大量繁殖和分层，贫营养条件，典型的温暖的海洋预测在几个环境变化的情况下之间的过渡进行调查。

Many organisms, from humans to microbes, need to acquire vitamins by ingesting them as food or taking them up directly from the environment. Vitamins are important to individual organisms, but they also have the potential to alter the health and productivity of entire ecosystems. This project will explore the production and consumption of vitamin B1 (thiamin) by planktonic cells that are the base of the ocean food chain. It will also examine the way that different microorganisms may interact harmoniously and/or competitively in metabolizing thiamin and similar molecules. A network analysis of data will help determine the role that these substances play in controlling microbial biodiversity and photosynthesis in sea water, and the response of microorganisms to changing ocean conditions. This project will also train postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and underdergraduates, and will support a teacher professional development program that prepares low-income, historically underrepresented, and other educationally underserved students from rural areas to graduate from high school, enroll and succeed in higher education, and pursue STEM careers. Plankton evolved diverse strategies to acquire thiamin, including salvaging thiamin-related compounds from the environment. This project will: 1) survey metabolic adaptions related to thiamin in plankton, using comparative genomics and evolution (high throughput DNA sequencing); 2) test important functional predictions using cultures and analytical chemistry (chemostats and mass spectrometry); 3) measure plankton interactions in natural and artificially stimulated phytoplankton blooms. This investigation will join the oceanographic cruises of two major field campaigns in the North Atlantic Ocean. The results will be integrated using several computational approaches to interpret variations in microbial community structure, the role of biochemical, genomic and taxonomic diversity in maintaining biodiversity patterns of today's oceans, as well as potential future oceans, and microbial networks. Specific aspects of thiamin metabolism pathways will be explored in the context of understanding microbial chemical interactions. These different levels of biodiversity and thiamin cycling will be investigated across transitions between productive phytoplankton blooms and the stratified, oligotrophic conditions that typify the warmer oceans predicted under several environmental change scenarios.