NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Microbial mediation of genotype-phenotype relationships and ecological function of toxic nectar.

该行动资助2021财年NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该奖学金支持将以创新方式对生活规则领域作出贡献的研究员的研究和培训。植物在其植被和花朵中产生一系列复杂的化学物质，这些化学物质在许多层面上影响着生态。许多植物产生的化学物质对人类社会很重要；它们可能对牲畜有毒，引起作物疾病，并为药物发现提供天然化学文库。虽然这些化合物对营养组织的影响已经被广泛研究，但对于花粉和花蜜中的特殊化学物质如何影响植物与传粉者和生活在花中的微生物的相互作用，人们知之甚少。许多花都有有益的和/或致病的真菌和细菌群落，这些真菌和细菌可以影响传粉者的行为和健康。通过基因组研究、实验和模拟建模的结合，该项目将测试植物基因组、植物化学和传粉者行为之间的联系。在他们的任期内，研究员将为中学生开发一个与花蜜微生物标准一致的教育单元。他们将在之前与非营利教育伙伴合作的基础上，向里诺和萨克拉门托的学生提供这个单元，提高公众对微生物在授粉中的作用的认识。鉴于植物-微生物-传粉者相互作用在自然和农业系统中的重要作用，对植物化学如何影响这些相互作用的基本理解尤为重要。这名研究员将专注于一种具有高度生物活性的花蜜化合物——吡咯利西啶生物碱，它是由一种被归化的非本地植物紫蝰的菊花——金雀花（Echium plantagineum）产生的。该研究员将描述三个种群中150种植物的花蜜和植被的生物碱含量。结合这些植物的代谢物分析和新生基因组分析，他们将确定影响花蜜和叶子中生物碱的遗传多态性。在同一种群中，他将收集和分离菊科植物和同花植物的花蜜微生物。他们将测试收集的ecium微生物是否比其他花蜜微生物更能在有毒生物碱存在下生长。最后，研究员将测试微生物生长和花蜜生物碱含量如何相互影响大黄蜂的花蜜消耗。在整个过程中，研究员将接受赞助科学家在微生物和遗传技术方面的广泛培训，这将增加他们在授粉和行为生态学方面不断增长的技能。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 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. Plants produce complex arrays of chemicals in their vegetation and flowers that impact the ecology at many levels. Many plant-produced chemicals are important to human society; they can be poisonous to livestock, cause crop disease, and offer natural chemical libraries for drug discovery. While the consequences of these compounds in vegetative tissues has been extensively studied, much less is known about how specialized chemicals in pollen and nectar impact plants’ interactions with pollinators and the microbes that live in flowers. Many flowers harbor communities of beneficial and/or pathogenic fungi and bacteria that can impact pollinator behavior and health. Through a combination of genomic studies, experiments, and simulation modeling, this project will test the link between plant genomes, plant chemistry, and pollinator behavior. During their tenure the fellow will develop a standards-aligned educational unit on nectar microbes for middle-school students. They will build on previous collaborations with non-profit education partners to deliver this unit to students in Reno and Sacramento, raising public recognition of microbe’s role in pollination. Given the important role of plant-microbe-pollinator interactions in natural and agricultural systems, a basic understanding of how plant chemistry shapes these interactions is particularly important.The fellow will focus on a highly bioactive class of nectar compounds, pyrrolizidine alkaloids, produced by the naturalized non-native plant purple viper’s bugloss, Echium plantagineum. The fellow will characterize the alkaloid content of the nectar and vegetation of 150 plants across three populations. Combining the metabolite profiling with de novo genomic analysis of these plants, they will identify genetic polymorphisms that influence the alkaloids in the nectar and leaves. In the same populations the fellow will collect and isolate nectar microbes from Echium and co-flowering species. They will test whether Echium-collected microbes are better able to grow in the presence of toxic alkaloids than other nectar microbes. Finally the fellow will test how microbial growth and nectar alkaloid content interactively impact nectar consumption by bumblebees. Throughout this process the fellow will receive extensive training in microbiological and genetic techniques from the sponsoring scientists that will add to a growing skillset in pollination and behavioral ecology.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.