Excellence in Research: Evaluating Environmental Stressor Effects on Soil Bacterial Traits

这个卓越研究（EiR）项目的目标是进行跨学科的合作研究，以调查先前的环境营养条件如何影响细菌种间和种内相互作用。具体而言，该研究将研究营养物质的变化如何改变细菌性状，例如形成孢子和修改细胞壁的物理特征以及遗传特征，这些特征是微生物-微生物和植物-微生物关系背景下物理特征，抗生素抗性和土壤养分获取的变化。这项工作的成果在农业、自然资源管理和养护部门具有广泛的国家利益。这项工作通过本科生和研究生一级的研究机会以及通过农村公立学校6-8年级的共享教育内容使社会受益。这项研究将与费耶特维尔州立大学（FSU）的本科生教育相结合，FSU是一所历史上的黑人大学，专注于非洲裔美国学生的教育，女性比例高，军事或军事附属学生群体。该项目将通过设计，实施和评估FSU提供的基于课程的本科研究经验（CURE）来支持教学研究整合能力，该课程将与东卡罗莱纳大学（ECU）正在进行的CURE和本科生/研究生主导的项目相关联。微生物生态学和生物多样性研究的整合将提高历史上边缘化人群的STEM教育质量，并加强STEM劳动力的多样性和培训。这项研究将检验这样一个假设，即长期的营养富集将导致更具竞争力（和更少的互利）的细菌种群（例如，增加的抗微生物剂耐药性，增加的生长率）相比，未施肥的同行，通过集中在三个目标：1）通过基于性状的表型分析来检查可培养的湿地土壤细菌，以了解持续的营养富集如何影响对资源获取重要的细菌性状，2）使用比较基因组方法鉴定来自营养丰富与营养有限环境的细菌分离物之间的基因型差异，以及3）通过将细菌接种物（来自施肥或未施肥土壤）添加到暴露于施肥梯度的湿地草中来检查先前的营养条件如何影响微生物-微生物和植物-微生物相互作用。费耶特维尔州立大学和东卡罗莱纳大学的团队将合作进行比较基因组学和功能性实验室检测。在生态背景下评估细菌性状将扩大我们对资源限制如何影响土壤微生物性状多样性的理解，从而促进农业和恢复中有益的植物-微生物相互作用。总的来说，这项研究将为参与者提供机会，以产生新的知识，建立和完善批判性思维能力，并提高进入研究生和/或专业学校的学生以及劳动力的整体竞争力。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

The goal of this Excellence in Research (EiR) project is to conduct interdisciplinary, collaborative research to investigate how prior environmental nutrient conditions influence bacterial inter- and intraspecific interactions. Specifically, the research will examine how changes in nutrients alter bacterial traits such as the physical features of forming spores and modifying cell walls and genetic features that are responsible for changes to physical features, antibiotic resistance, and soil nutrient access in the context of microbe-microbe and plant-microbe relationships. Results from this work are of broad national interests in agricultural, natural resources management and conservation sectors. This work benefits society through research opportunities at the undergraduate and graduate levels and through shared educational content for grades 6-8 at rural public schools. This research will be integrated with the education of undergraduates at Fayetteville State University (FSU), a Historically Black University focusing on the education of African American students, with high female, and military or military-affiliated student populations. This project will support teaching-research integration capacity through the design, implementation, and assessment of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) offered at FSU, which will be linked to ongoing CUREs and undergraduate/graduate student-led projects at East Carolina University (ECU). The integration of microbial ecology and biodiversity research will improve the STEM education quality of historically marginalized populations and enhance diversity and training of the STEM workforce. This research will test the hypothesis that long-term nutrient enrichment will result in more competitive (and less mutualistic) bacterial populations (e.g., increased antimicrobial resistance, increased growth rates) compared to the unfertilized counterparts by focusing on three objectives: 1) examining culturable wetland soil bacteria by trait-based phenotypic analyses to understand how ongoing nutrient enrichment influences bacterial traits that are important for resource acquisition, 2) identifying genotypic differences between bacterial isolates from nutrient-rich vs. nutrient-limited environments using comparative genomic approaches, and 3) examining how previous nutrient conditions influence microbe-microbe and plant-microbe interactions by adding bacterial inocula (from fertilized or unfertilized soils) to a wetland grass exposed to a fertilization gradient. The Fayetteville State University and East Carolina University teams will collaboratively conduct comparative genomics and functional lab-based assays. Evaluating bacterial traits in an ecological context will expand our understanding of how resource limitation influences soil microbial trait diversity with consequences for promoting beneficial plant-microbe interactions in agriculture and restoration. Collectively, this research will provide participants the opportunity to generate new knowledge, establish and refine critical thinking skills, and enhance the overall competitiveness of students entering graduate and/or professional school as well as the workforce.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.