Ecological Stoichiometry and the Relevance of Prokaryotic Heterotroph Biodiversity

湖泊和海洋是地球表面碳储存的重要区域。 水生系统储存碳的能力的重要调节器之一是植物和分解者（细菌）生长之间的平衡。这种平衡受到水中营养物质可用性的强烈影响。已知植物多样性在生态系统中产生生物量的能力中起重要作用，但很少有人知道细菌多样性在分解植物产生的物质中的重要性。这项研究将探讨细菌多样性的重要性，营养循环和有机物的生产在美国中北部的湖泊。 最近的研究表明，湖泊中的细菌群落可能不是特别“物种丰富”，但不同湖泊之间存在相当大的差异。物种丰富的湖泊被假设为非常有效地回收养分，并且可能非常低效地储存碳，而物种贫乏的湖泊应该非常有效地回收养分，同时非常有效地储存碳。这些假设将通过研究从实验室湖泊中分离的单个细菌菌株和完整的细菌群落的行为来检验。菌株和完整的社区将其特征在于他们的能力，再循环的营养物质和社区多样性的重要性，营养物质的再循环将进行评估和mathematics.This研究将促进教学和培训目标，包括：与中学数学老师，高中科学公平的学生，研究生的培训，和博士后研究员。PI将参加以少数民族学生为重点的夏季本科研究项目。

Lakes and oceans are important regions on the Earth's surface in terms of carbon storage. One of the important regulators of the ability of aquatic systems to store carbon is the balance between plant and decomposer (bacterial) growth. This balance is strongly affected by the availability of nutrients in the water. Plant diversity is known to play an important role in the ability of ecosystems to produce biomass in ecosystems but little is known of the importance of bacterial diversity in decomposing the material produced by plants. This study will examine the importance of bacterial diversity to nutrient cycling and organic matter production in lakes in the north-central United States. Recent studies suggest that bacterial communities in lakes may not be particularly "species rich" but there is considerable variability among different lakes. Lakes that are species-rich are hypothesized to recycle nutrients very efficiently, and perhaps store carbon very inefficiently, whereas, species-poor lakes should recycle nutrient inefficiently while storing carbon very efficiently. These hypotheses will be examined by studying the behavior of both individual strains of bacteria isolated from lakes in the laboratory and intact communities of bacteria. Strains and intact communities will be characterized with respect to their ability to recycle nutrients and the importance of community diversity to nutrient recycling will be evaluated and modeled mathematically.This study will promote teaching and training goals including: working with a middle school math teacher, high school science fair students, training of graduate students, and a post-doctoral fellow. The PIs will participate in summer undergraduate research programs focused on minority students.