Dimensions: The role of biodiversity for microbial adaptation to anthropogenic perturbations

微生物是地球上最大的生物多样性储存库，驱动着维持大多数栖息地生命的生物地球化学循环，并导致或控制人类，动物和植物的疾病。然而，对这种惊人的生物多样性的基本方面仍然知之甚少。例如，数千种细菌栖息在一克土壤或一升海水中，每种细菌编码数百个功能未知的基因。这种多样性意味着什么以及它有多大用处，人们仍然知之甚少。该项目将采用先进的基因组技术和数学建模，研究在水生生境中创造多样性的遗传机制，并确定新的、具有生物技术重要性的基因和途径，以清除农药和石油基碳氢化合物等环境污染物。这些发现有望使人们对微生物生物多样性在生态系统功能以及对自然和人为扰动的恢复力方面的作用有更好的预测性理解，并可能产生重要的健康和经济效益。这些技术将在微生物学、生态学、进化和系统生物学以及环境工程领域得到应用。研究生和本科生，包括来自波多黎各大学的少数民族学生，将接受微生物学、计算系统生物学和工程学的培训，这是当代研究的一个关键的跨学科领域，在传统的学术环境中没有得到充分的覆盖。

Microbes represent the largest reservoir of biodiversity on Earth, drive the biogeochemical cycles that sustain life in most habitats, and cause or control diseases in humans, animals, and plants. Yet, fundamental aspects of this astonishing biodiversity remain poorly understood. For example, thousands of bacterial species inhabit a typical gram of soil or liter of seawater, each encoding a few hundred genes of unknown function. What this diversity means and how useful it is remains poorly understood. This project will employ advanced genomic techniques and mathematical modeling to study the genetic mechanisms that create diversity within aquatic habitats and to identify new, biotechnologically important genes and pathways for cleaning up environmental pollutants such as pesticides and petroleum-based hydrocarbons. The findings are expected to lead to a more predictive understanding of the role of microbial biodiversity for ecosystem function and resilience to natural as well as anthropogenic perturbations, and could have important health and economic benefits.New multi-disciplinary technologies to study microbes and their communities will be developed and made publicly available. These technologies will have applications across the fields of microbiology, ecology, evolutionary and systems biology, and environmental engineering. Graduate and undergraduate students, including minority students from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, will be trained at the interface of microbiology, computational systems biology and engineering, a pivotal, interdisciplinary area of contemporary research that is not adequately covered in traditional academic settings.