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和复杂的，但同样的复杂性使得了解一个群落如何应对和适应变化极具挑战性。使用简单的2-物种群落的实验表明，物种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的选择如何运作却知之甚少。该项目将测试复杂微生物群落中的物种相互作用如何塑造对环境变化的进化反应，重点是与农业相关的土壤微生物群落。土壤微生物群落是氮供应、保护作物免受病原体侵害和重金属生物修复等农业过程的关键驱动力。因此，了解这些社区如何适应环境变化至关重要。学生将实时与自然微生物土壤群落进行实验进化，并测试各种农业压力源（如农药，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.