BII-Implementation: GEMS: Genomics and eco-evolution of multi-scale symbioses

人类以及周围的动植物都生活在微生物的世界里。现在众所周知，微生物和病毒感染、相互作用并在地球上每一种生物的基因组中移动。生物体之间的关系，以及它们与微生物的关系，可以极大地改变宿主植物或动物的特征，行为和功能。有时这些相互作用是有益的，有时它们可能是有害的，引起疾病。许多影响宿主功能，并可能产生隐藏但重要的全球规模影响，推动对气候变化，健康和疾病，抗生素耐药性等的反应速度。了解微生物世界内的嵌套相互作用如何发生并影响我们的生态系统对于控制其影响至关重要。新的生物集成研究所，多尺度共生的基因组学和生态进化（GEMS），专注于三叶草和蜜蜂传粉者之间的经典物种相互作用，作为一个模型，以了解嵌套在其中的无数微生物的影响和动态。该项目采用综合方法来了解分子相互作用如何影响生态系统。作为一个价值200亿美元的美国产业，研究三叶草/蜜蜂嵌套基因组的项目成果具有实用价值，也是解决综合生物学基本问题的模型。GEMS的研究人员是协作，多元化，互动的科学家和教育工作者，他们采用跨学科的方法来回答有关嵌套基因组如何相互作用和影响世界的关键问题。该项目采用共同领导模式，在培训员和受训人员之间进行共同辅导，并开展多地点教育活动。该研究所旨在整合生物学科，以了解嵌套基因组如何应对环境变化。GEMS将解决基本的生物学问题，共生如何统一生物学，从分子到生态系统？ 该项目的目标是建立一个框架，说明巢状共生体的移动性所产生的表型变异如何影响性状的适应性以及物种相互作用的强度和稳定性。最终，该研究所的目标是了解这种变化如何影响生态系统对环境变化的反应。该研究所以开花植物和昆虫传粉者（三叶草和蜜蜂）之间的典型共生关系为基础，扩展到包括嵌套在微生物世界中的相互作用。该研究利用了多种嵌套相互作用（植物-传粉者，豆类-根瘤菌，蜜蜂-微生物组）的广泛知识，从管理共生建立的分子过程中建立系统内部和系统之间的联系，并扩展表型性状，以定义它们如何相互作用并在自然世界中共同进化。数据与生态和进化理论相结合，以超越焦点系统来建立预测模型。计算机科学、统计学和数学扩大了生物学问题的范围和答案的影响。沿着的是传统的学术孤岛，将研究人员划分为分子和有机体单位，这阻碍了生物学的统一观点，还有许多其他的问题，例如将微生物与宏观生物分开，将植物与动物分开，将学生与教师分开，将教育与研究分开，以及将多样性、公平性和包容性与科学分开。 通过西班牙语的K-12教育，并在中西部的三个城市和农村社区开展微生物项目和吉姆·霍兰德项目，GEMS专注于改变生物学的交叉目标。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Humans, and the animals and plants around them, live in a microbial world. It is now well-known that microbes and viruses infect, interact and move through the genomes of every organism on Earth. Relationships among organisms, and with their microbes, can dramatically change the traits, behaviors, and functions of the host plant or animal. Sometimes these interactions are beneficial and sometimes they can be detrimental by causing disease. Many influence host function and can have hidden but important global scale impacts, driving the rates of responses to climate change, health and disease, antibiotic resistance, and more. Understanding how nested interactions within the microbial world occur and influence our ecosystems is critical to controlling their impact. The new Biology Integration Institute, Genomics and Eco-evolution of Multi-Scale Symbiosis (GEMS), focuses on the classical species interaction between clover and honeybee pollinators as a model to understand the impact and dynamics of the myriad of microbes nested within them. The project takes an integrative approach to understand how molecular interactions impact the ecosystem. As a $20 billion US industry, the outcomes of the project studying clover/honeybee nested genomes has practical value as well as being a model for addressing fundamental questions in integrative biology. The researchers in GEMS are collaborative, diverse, interactive scientists and educators who take an inter-disciplinary approach to answer critical questions about how nested genomes interact and affect the world. The project uses a shared leadership model with co-mentorship between trainer and trainee and multisite educational activities. The established institute is designed to integrate biological disciplines to understand how nested genomes respond to environmental change.GEMS will address the fundamental biological question, How do symbioses unify biology, from molecule to ecosystem? The goal of this project is to establish a framework for how the phenotypic variation generated by the mobility of nested symbionts influences the adaptability of traits and the strength and stability of species interactions. Ultimately, the Institute aims to understand how this variation impacts ecosystem responses to environmental change. The Institute is grounded in the canonical symbiosis between flowering plants and insect pollinators (clover and honeybees), expanding to include interactions nested in their microbial world. The research leverages the extensive knowledge in multiple nested interactions (plant–pollinator, legume–rhizobium, honey bee–microbiome) to build connections within and across systems from the molecular processes that govern establishment of symbiosis and extend phenotypic traits to define how they interact and evolve together in the natural world. Data are integrated with ecological and evolutionary theory to generalize beyond the focal systems to build predictive models. Computer science, statistics, and mathematics expand both the range of biological questions asked and the impact of their answers. Along with the traditional academic silos dividing researchers into molecular and organismal units that prevent a unified view of biology are many others, such as those separating microbe from macrobe, plant from animal, student from faculty, education from research, and diversity, equity, and inclusion from science. Through K-12 education in Spanish and targeting excellence with Project Microbe and the Jim Holland program in three urban and rural communities in the Midwest, GEMS focuses on the intersecting goals of changing how biology is done and who does it, unifying biology by including the small but powerful so often overlooked.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.