IRES: Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Microbiology and Biogeosciences of Siberian Deep Subsurface Permafrost

部分1 This NSF IRES赠款将提供本科生在微生物学和地球科学丰富的国际研究机会，通过他们的独特的5000 - 300万年前的永久冻土沉积物样品以前在东北西伯利亚北极收集的检查。在三个夏天的课程中，12名学生将在俄罗斯科学院土壤科学物理化学和生物问题研究所（IPBPSS）的土壤冷冻学实验室度过总共六周的时间，并在IPBPSS和田纳西大学诺克斯维尔的学术导师的监督下完成他们的研究项目。该项目将为这些学生提供包括教育指导和文化启蒙在内的综合研究体验，同时加强美国和俄罗斯科学家之间的研究合作。第二部分永久冻土层占据了北方半球约25%（2300万平方公里）的地球大陆表面，但其微生物群仍有很大一部分未被探索。微生物群落嵌入永冻土数百万年代表了一个？金矿？基因编码的低温生物催化剂参与生物合成和生物降解途径。参加该IRES计划的学生的研究项目将致力于研究生物多样性，以及深层地下永久冻土沉积物中微生物多样性，功能活性和理化性质之间的相互作用。拟议的研究将采用各种最先进的技术，如qPCR，DNA杂交，地球化学分析和宏基因组学，以及传统的微生物和分析方法。这项研究将填补西伯利亚永久冻土的分类和功能多样性方面的空白，并有助于国际上对永久冻土生态系统的了解。来自不同永冻土层的宏基因组数据的广泛传播和可用性将为我们了解极地地区永冻土退化及其对全球变暖的影响方面的微生物生态学提供相当多的知识。

Part 1This NSF IRES grant will provide undergraduate students with a rich international research opportunity in both microbiology and biogeosciences through their examination of unique 5,000-3,000,000 year-old permafrost sediment samples previously collected in the Northeast Siberian Arctic. Twelve students over the course of three summers will spend a total of six weeks at the Soil Cryology Laboratory of the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems of Soil Sciences (IPBPSS) within the Russian Academy of Sciences and complete their research projects under the supervision of academic mentors from both IPBPSS and University of Tennessee Knoxville. The project will give these students an integrated research experience including educational guidance and cultural enlightenment, while strengthening research collaboration between U.S. and Russian scientists.Part 2Permafrost occupies approximately 25% (23 million km²) of the Earth's continental surface in the Northern Hemisphere, yet its microbiota remains largely unexplored. The microbial communities embedded within permafrost for millions of years represent a ?gold mine? of genes encoding for low-temperature biocatalysts involved in biosynthetic and biodegradative pathways. Research projects of the students participating in this IRES program will be devoted to studying the biodiversity, as well as the interactions between microbial diversity, functional activity and physicochemical properties, within deep subsurface permafrost sediments. The proposed research will apply various state-of-the-art techniques such as qPCR, DNA hybridization, geochemical analyses, and metagenomics, in addition to traditional microbiological and analytical approaches. This research will fill in gaps regarding the taxonomic and functional diversity of the Siberian permafrost and contribute to the international knowledge about permafrost ecosystems. The broad dissemination and availability of metagenomic data from different permafrost strata will supply considerable knowledge to our understanding of the microbial ecology of polar regions with respect to both permafrost degradation and its impact on global warming.