NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in Japan

这项行动资助了阿肯色大学的Geoffrey Zahn于2013年夏天在日本筑波的国家农业环境科学研究所开展一项生物科学研究项目。这个项目的标题是“在一个变暖的星球上微生物相互作用对土壤碳循环的重要性”。主持会议的科学家是Rota Wagai博士。本项目研究了微生物相互作用对土壤碳动态变化的影响，以响应变暖条件，利用不同温度处理下自然存在的细菌群体的微观环境。土壤变形虫是数量众多且无处不在的细菌捕食者，它们在调节细菌数量方面发挥着重要的作用，但研究还不够充分，而细菌数量对全球碳循环非常重要。现有的气候变化模型已经开始研究微生物群落在促进或缓解全球变暖方面可能发挥的作用，但它们尚未包括有关微生物群落结构如何影响这些预测的信息。在全因子实验中，将普通的土壤变形虫与自然产生的细菌一起用于完整的灭菌土芯的重复。二氧化碳排放的频繁测量使得研究微生物捕食和食物网复杂性对细菌介导的气候变化响应的重要性成为可能。EAPSI奖学金的广泛影响包括为研究员提供美国以外的第一手研究经验；介绍该地区的科学、科学政策和科学基础设施；以及对社会、文化和语言的了解。这些活动符合美国国家科学基金会的目标，即在其科学家、工程师和教育工作者的职业生涯早期培养国际合作，从而确保美国科学劳动力具有全球意识。此外，这项研究的经验和结果将通过同行评议的出版物、公开研讨会和电台采访，以及面向中学生的多语种在线博客，广泛传播。这篇博客将记录日本之旅和学习日本文化的经历，但重点是国际合作和文化交流的重要性。它的设计目的是让学生在教育的关键时刻感受到发现和科学过程的兴奋，同时分享对另一种文化的见解。

This action funds Geoffrey Zahn of the University of Arkansas to conduct a research project in Biological Sciences during the summer of 2013 at the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan. The project title is "The Importance of Microbial Interactions to Soil Carbon Cycling on a Warming Planet." The host scientist is Dr. Rota Wagai.This project examines the effect of microbial interactions on changes to soil carbon dynamics in response to warming conditions using microcosms with naturally-occuring bacterial populations under different temperature treatments. Soil amoebae are abundant and ubiquitous bacterial predators that play an important, yet understudied, role in regulating bacterial populations, which are vastly important for global carbon cycling. Existing climate change models have begun to examine the functions that microbial communities may play in contributing to or mitigating global warming, but they do not yet include information about how total microbial community structure impacts these predictions. Common soil amoebae are used in replicates of intact sterilized soil cores along with inoculations of naturally-occuring bacteria in a full factorial experiment. Frequent measurements of carbon dioxide emissions allow an investigation of the importance of microbial predation and food web complexity on bacterially-mediated responses to climate change.Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Furthermore, this experience and the results of this research will be broadly disseminated through peer-reviewed publication, public seminars and radio interviews, and through a multi-lingual online blog geared towards middle school students. The blog will document the experience of traveling to Japan and learning about Japanese culture, but will focus on the importance of international collaborations and cultural exchanges. It will be designed to engage students at a critical point in their education with the excitement of discovery and the scientific process, while sharing insights into another culture.