DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Incorporating Metagenomics into Experimental Community Ecology: Tests with the Pitcher Plant Model System

微生物系统，包括猪笼草（Sarracenia purpurea）叶片内形成水生食物网的微生物群落，一直是生态学研究的重要模型。这是因为它们很容易在实验室中复制，并且具有快速的动态特性，可以在几天内解决问题，而其他类型的生物体可能需要数周到数年的时间。迄今为止，对微生物系统群落生态学的研究仅限于那些可以在实验室中生长的细菌物种（可在琼脂上培养），估计不到群落多样性的1%。分子生物学技术的应用彻底改变了这一领域；现在可以通过检查这些系统内所有细菌的基因组来研究微生物系统（宏基因组学）。该项目将使用宏基因组学作为工具，在一系列实验中识别细菌物种，这些实验旨在测试猪笼草系统食物网的动力学问题，以及该系统如何响应不同类型的影响，包括新物种的入侵。该项目还将测试当考虑系统中的所有细菌时，先前关于该系统的相互作用和多样性的工作（仅使用可培养细菌）的结果是否稳健。本项目将培养1名女研究生和1名本科生在分子生物学、群落生态学和实验设计方面的研究。这种跨学科的培训将为他们在多个科学领域的职业生涯做好准备。

Microbial systems, including the community of microbes that form the aquatic food web within the leaves of the pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea, have been important models for ecological studies. This is because they are easily replicated in the laboratory and have rapid dynamics that allow questions to be addressed in a matter of days that would take weeks to years with other types of organisms. To date, studies of the community ecology of microbial systems have been limited to those bacterial species that can be grown in the lab (culturable on agar), which is estimated to be less than 1% of the diversity within a community. The use of molecular biology techniques has revolutionized this field; microbial systems can now be studied by examining the genomes of all of the bacteria within these systems (metagenomics). This project will use metagenomics as a tool to identify bacterial species in a series of experiments designed to test questions about the dynamics of the food web of the pitcher plant system, and how this system responds to different types of impacts, including invasion by novel species. This project will also test whether the results of prior work (with only culturable bacteria) on the interactions and diversity of this system are robust when all bacteria in the system are considered. This project will train a female graduate student and undergraduates in molecular biology, community ecology and experimental design. This cross-disciplinary training will prepare them for careers multiple areas of the sciences.