Traditional subsistence and the oral microbiome of indigenous communities in southeast Alaska

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）项目和SBE生物人类学项目的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在Sealaska Heritage Institute的Rosita world博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位早期职业科学家，研究在多大程度上消费传统食品和参与自给自足的收获活动可以帮助阿拉斯加东南部的土著社区保持健康的口腔微生物群。生活在口腔中的细菌种类和其他微生物群落（口腔微生物组）在支持口腔内外的人类健康方面发挥着关键作用。饮食摄入会影响口腔微环境中微生物的组成和功能。虽然之前的研究比较了不同生存方式和不同人口历史的社区，但该项目将通过与阿拉斯加东南部的Tsimshian， Haida和Tlingit社区合作，对口腔微生物组如何响应饮食变化提供更具体和更精细的分析。该项目通过分析传统食物的种类和数量的变化如何驱动口腔微生物组的个体内/个体间变化，解决了理解饮食与口腔微生物组之间关系的现有局限性。这项研究将说明在多大程度上维持传统的狩猎-捕鱼-采集饮食元素可以支持这些阿拉斯加土著社区健康，多样化的口腔微生物群，这对更广泛地理解人类口腔微生物群的进化以及工业化食品对人类健康和生物功能的影响具有重要意义。该项目的目标将通过与阿拉斯加东南部土著社区的社区合作研究来实现。研究人员将参与档案研究，并促进社区焦点小组确定影响阿拉斯加东南部阿拉斯加原住民生存实践的各种社会、经济、环境和政治因素。这些背景数据将与来自四个阿拉斯加土著社区（两个农村和两个城市）的调查数据相结合，以评估个人参与传统生存活动和消费传统食物的程度。最后，将通过口腔龈线拭子收集口腔微生物组样本，以检查这些社区的口腔微生物组如何受到传统食品消费的影响。研究中采用的社区合作研究方法将提供更细致入微的理解，了解口腔微生物群如何以及何时随着饮食变化而变化。重要的是，这项研究将克服现有的人类微生物组研究领域的确定偏见，在这些领域中土著社区的代表性不足，并为影响土著社区如何或为什么选择参与基因组研究的因素提供新的见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program and SBE's Biological Anthropology program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Rosita Worl at the Sealaska Heritage Institute, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating to what degree consuming traditional foods and participating in subsistence harvesting activities can help Indigenous communities in southeast Alaska maintain a healthy oral microbiome. The community of bacterial species and other microbes living in the mouth (the oral microbiome) play a critical role in supporting human health, both within and beyond the mouth. Dietary intake can impact the composition and function of the microbes living in the oral microenvironment. While previous research has compared communities with different subsistence methods and different population histories, this project will provide a more contextualized and fine-scaled analysis of how the oral microbiome responds to dietary variation by working in collaboration with Tsimshian, Haida, and Tlingit communities of southeast Alaska. The project addresses existing limitations in understanding the relationship between diet and the oral microbiome by analyzing how variation in the types and amounts of traditional foods consumed drives intra-/inter-individual variation in the oral microbiome. This research will illustrate to what extent maintaining elements of the traditional hunter-fisher-gatherer diet can support a healthy, diverse oral microbiome in these Alaska Native communities, with implications for understanding the evolution of the human oral microbiome more broadly as well as the impact of industrialized foods on human health and biological function.The aims of this project will be achieved through community-collaborative research with Indigenous communities in southeast Alaska. The researcher will engage in archival research and facilitate community focus groups to identify the various social, economic, environmental, and political factors shaping Alaska Native subsistence practices in southeast Alaska. This contextualizing data will be paired with survey data from four Alaska Native communities, two rural and two urban, to assess to what extent individuals participate in traditional subsistence activities and consume traditional foods. Finally, oral microbiome samples will be collected via oral gumline swabs to examine how the oral microbiome in these communities is shaped by the consumption of traditional foods. The community-collaborative research methods employed in the study will provide a more nuanced understanding of how and when the oral microbiome shifts in response to dietary changes. Importantly, this research will combat the existing ascertainment bias in the field of human microbiome studies, where Indigenous communities are underrepresented, and provide new insight into the factors shaping how or why Indigenous communities choose to participate in genomic research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.