The role of interspecific interactions in shaping adaptive evolution in soil microbial communities

了解微生物群落的进化和功能被认为是当今最大的挑战之一。微生物群落是高度多样化和复杂的，然而这种复杂性使得理解一个群落如何应对和适应变化变得极具挑战性。使用简单的两物种群落进行的实验表明，物种之间的相互作用可以影响对非生物环境的进化反应，但我们对更现实的自然环境中群落内部的选择如何运作知之甚少。该项目将测试复杂微生物群落中的物种相互作用如何影响对环境变化的进化反应，重点关注与农业相关的土壤微生物群落。土壤微生物群落是农业过程的关键驱动因素，如氮供应、保护作物免受病原体侵害和重金属生物修复。因此，了解这些群落如何适应环境变化是至关重要的。该学生将在天然土壤微生物群落中进行实时进化实验，并测试各种农业压力源（如杀虫剂、肥料和抗生素）对群落结构和功能的影响。

Understanding how microbial communities evolve and function is regarded as one of today's greatest challenges. Microbial communities are highly diverse and complex, yet this same complexity makes it extremely challenging to understand how a community might respond and adapt to change. Experiments using simple 2-species communities have shown that species interactions can affect evolutionary responses to the abiotic environment, yet we have little idea about how selection operates within communities in more realistic, natural settings. This project will test how species interactions in complex microbial communities shape evolutionary responses to environmental change, focusing on agriculturally-relevant soil microbial communities. Soil microbial communities are key drivers of agricultural processes such as nitrogen provisioning, protecting crops from pathogens and heavy metal bioremediation. Hence, understanding how these communities adapt to environmental change is vital. The student will perform experimental evolution in real-time with natural microbial soil communities and test the effects of various agricultural stressors such as pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics on community structure and function.