NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Ecological and genetic structuring of a pathogen microbiome and its effect on virulence

这一行动为NSF 2021财年生物学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，综合研究调查了支配基因组、环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则。该奖学金支持研究员的研究和培训，这些研究员将以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。传染性真菌病原体能够寄生自己的微生物，这些微生物可以影响真菌与动植物之间的关系。该项目的目标是制定一般规则，以更好地了解这些微生物与其病原宿主之间的关系，以及这些关系是如何演变的。这些目标与病原体对人类、农业和生物多样性构成的威胁有关。这位研究员将参与一系列旨在突出基本发现如何为广大受众提供应用研究信息的活动。该研究员将为推广机构和农业利益攸关方举办一系列研讨会，强调作物病虫害和病原体生命周期对作物管理战略的影响。此外，该研究员将为田纳西州农村地区服务不足的学校的小学生实施互动课程，使用蚜虫、真菌病原体和其他微生物。这些课程将使学生接触到微生物对人类生活的有益影响。真菌病原体Pandora new apidis是蚜虫的重要天敌。拟议的工作将这种病原体开发为一个易于处理的系统，用于研究微生物组对宿主-病原体相互作用的影响。内共生细菌的病原菌微生物群被假设为解释豌豆蚜虫流行的原因。该项目将测试从半自然地区收集的受感染蚜虫体内共生菌的多样性是否概括了病原体、遗传多样性或生态因素。这位研究员将使用元基因组学来确定各种内共生菌的功能能力，目的是测试新蚜虫内共生菌是否与菌株之间的毒力差异有关。这项工作将扩大对生态和进化如何塑造病原体与微生物联系的理解。蚜虫是一种入侵的农业害虫，利用真菌病原菌对蚜虫种群进行生物防治。发展对农业害虫如何抵抗生防剂的理解在害虫综合管理中至关重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. Infectious fungal pathogens are capable of hosting their own microbes, and these microbes can affect the relationship between the fungus and the plants and animals. The project goals are to develop general rules to better understand the relationship between these microbes and their pathogenic hosts, and how these relationships evolve. These goals are relevant to threats that pathogens pose to humans, agriculture, and biodiversity. The fellow will engage in a series of activities designed to highlight how basic discovery informs applied research for a broad audience. The fellow will hold a series of seminars for extension agents and agricultural stakeholders, highlighting the impacts of crop pest and pathogen life cycle on crop management strategies. Further, the fellow will implement interactive lessons for elementary students in underserved schools in rural TN, using aphids, fungal pathogens, and other microbes. These lessons will expose students to beneficial impacts of microbes on human life.The fungal pathogen Pandora neoaphidis is an important natural microbial enemy of aphids. The proposed work develops this pathogen as a tractable system for studying microbiome effects on host-pathogen interactions. The pathogen’s microbiome of endosymbiotic bacteria is hypothesized to explain pea aphid epidemics. The project will test whether endosymbiont diversity in P. neoaphidis from infected aphids collected from semi-natural areas recapitulates pathogen genetic diversity or ecological factors. The fellow will use metagenomics to determine the functional capacity of various endosymbiont taxa, with the goal of testing if P. neoaphidis endosymbionts correlate with difference in virulence among strains. This work will broaden understanding of how ecology and evolution shape pathogen associations with microbes. Aphids are invasive agricultural pests, and fungal pathogens are used as a biological control of aphid populations. Developing an understanding of how agricultural pests resist biocontrol agents is critical in integrated pest management.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.