EAPSI: The Diversity and Distributions of Microbial Eukaryotes in Geothermal Environments

地热温泉系统是评估微生物多样性和研究环境因素如何塑造这种多样性的有用的自然系统。地热泉的环境特征变化很大，这些梯度（如温度、pH值）使温泉成为理解微真核生物群落生态分布的“模型”系统。本项目将研究新西兰温泉生态系统中的微生物，以表征微生物真核群落。新西兰非常适合这项工作，因为它拥有数千种独特的温泉生态系统。这种科学的生物清查将有助于科学家和决策者评估生态系统的独特性、生物技术潜力和生态系统健康。鉴于目前对利用地热温泉作为能源的强烈兴趣，这一点尤为重要。这项研究将与怀卡托大学的Craig Cary博士和GNS Science的Matthew Stott博士合作进行，他们是微生物生态学和温泉生态系统方面的专家。真核微生物（如原生生物）数量丰富，对生态系统功能至关重要，但在温泉中仍然缺乏研究。本研究将使用从Taupo&amp；#772；新西兰火山带（TVZ）代表了极端的温度梯度（13- 100.6°C）， pH值（0- 9.7），以寻找新的真核生物多样性和测试关于环境参数如何影响地热环境中微生物真核群落的假设。高通量DNA测序结合显微分析将用于地热环境中微生物真核生物群落的首次评估之一。尽管在温泉和其他地热环境中发现的细菌和古细菌已经研究了几十年，但尽管越来越多的证据表明它们可能丰富而活跃，但对这些环境中发现的微生物真核生物多样性尚未进行全面的研究。因此，该项目将有助于我们了解温泉系统的生物多样性，以及这些生态系统中是否存在特有的真核微生物类群。该奖项由美国国家科学基金会和新西兰皇家学会共同资助，隶属于东亚和太平洋暑期研究所项目，支持一名美国研究生进行暑期研究。

Geothermal hotspring systems represent useful natural systems to assess microbial diversity and examine how environmental factors shape this diversity. Geothermal springs vary dramatically in their environmental characteristics and these gradients (e.g. temperature, pH) make hotsprings 'model' systems for understanding the ecological distributions of micro-eukaryotic communities. This project will investigate microbes in New Zealand hotspring ecosystems to characterize microbial eukaryotic communities. New Zealand is ideally suited for this work as it is home to thousands of unique hotspring ecosystems. This scientific bioinventory will be useful for scientists and policy makers to assess ecosystem uniqueness, biotechnology potential, and ecosystem health. This is particularly relevant given strong current interest in harnessing geothermal hotsprings for energy. This research will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Craig Cary at the University of Waikato and Dr. Matthew Stott at GNS Science, experts in microbial ecology and hot spring ecosystems. Eukaryotic microbes (e.g. protists) are abundant and critical to ecosystem functioning, yet remain poorly characterized in hotsprings. This study will use archived samples from fifty geothermal hot springs collected from the Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ) in New Zealand that represent extreme gradients in temperature (13- 100.6°C), pH (0- 9.7) to search for novel eukaryotic diversity and test hypotheses on how environmental parameters shape microbial eukaryotic communities in geothermal environments. High-throughput DNA sequencing combined with microscopic analyses will be used to yield one of the first assessments of the microbial eukaryotic communities in geothermal environments. Although the bacteria and archaea found in hotsprings and other geothermal environments have been studied for decades, there are no comprehensive study of the microbial eukaryotic diversity found in these environments despite increasing evidence that they can be abundant and active. Thus, this project will contribute to our understanding of the biodiversity of hotspring systems and whether there are endemic eukaryotic microbial taxa found in these ecosystems. This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Royal Society of New Zealand.