NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2022: Quantifying the microbiome's contribution to host acclimation and evolution under stress

该行动资助了美国国家科学基金会2022财年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。全球环境变化的速度如此之快，以至于生物都在努力适应它。然而，对物种对变化的反应的预测忽略了潜在的关键参与者：与生物体一起生活的微生物，称为宿主相关微生物。土壤微生物通常在新环境中有益于植物，但这种益处最终可能会降低植物对这些环境的进化能力。这个项目调查了这些对立力量的相对强度。也就是说，要了解微生物最终是帮助还是阻碍植物对全球变化的反应。该研究员还将作为当地社区大学生的导师进行案例研究。该案例研究的重点是美国最缺水的州新墨西哥州一种常见的本地植物的干旱压力。了解宿主相关微生物的驱动因素和结果将更准确地预测物种对全球变化的反应。本项目利用野外实验、宏基因组分析和种群建模来研究微生物介导的宿主应激反应中最重要的微生物、生态和进化驱动因素，并将这些因素扩大规模，以预测宿主种群对未来条件的反应。首先，田间试验将操纵微生物的存在/不存在，以量化它们对植物适应（如缓冲、可塑性）和适应（如自然选择、选择机会）干旱胁迫的相对影响。然后，元基因组和转录组数据将确定可能导致这些效应的微生物特性。最后，微生物对个体的影响将使用积分预测模型来预测微生物在未来压力情景下如何影响宿主的持久性。该研究员将创建一个带薪的暑期研究项目，邀请当地社区大学生到新墨西哥大学（UNM）校园参与这项研究，并在研究员和新墨西哥大学研究生的指导下设计和进行独立研究。总的来说，这个项目将扩大研究员的实验，计算和建模方法的范围，为未来的研究教师职位，并为宿主-微生物组相互作用的进化生态学的创新研究构建一个新的，一般的框架，以锚定未来的研究计划。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 2022, 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. Global environmental change is occurring at such a rapid pace that organisms are struggling to adapt to it. However, forecasts of species responses to change have left out potentially pivotal players: the microbes that live with organisms, called host-associated microbes. Soil microbes often benefit plants in new environments, but this benefit may ultimately reduce plants’ ability to evolve in response to these environments. This project investigates the relative strength of these opposing forces. That is, to understand whether microbes ultimately help or hinder plants in their responses to global change. The fellow will also conduct a case study as a mentor to local community college students. The case study focuses on drought stress on a common, native plant in New Mexico, the most water-stressed state in the US. Understanding the drivers and outcomes of host-associate microbes will yield more accurate predictions of species’ responses to global change. This project uses field experiments, metagenomic analyses, and population modeling to investigate the most important microbial, ecological, and evolutionary drivers of microbe-mediated host stress responses, and to scale these up to predict host population responses to future conditions. First, a field experiment will manipulate the presence/absence of microbes to quantify their relative influence on plant acclimation (e.g. buffering, plasticity) and adaptation (e.g. natural selection, opportunity for selection) to drought stress. Then, meta-genomic and -transcriptomic data will identify microbial properties that may underlie these effects. Finally, microbial effects on individuals will be scaled up to population growth using integral projection models that forecast how microbes will influence host persistence under future stress scenarios. The fellow will create a paid summer research program that brings local community college students to the University of New Mexico (UNM) campus to participate in this research, and to design and conduct independent research under the mentorship of the fellow and UNM graduate students. Altogether this project will expand the fellow’s range of experimental, computational, and modeling approaches for a future research faculty position, and construct a novel, general framework for innovative research on the evolutionary ecology of host-microbiome interactions to anchor a future research program.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.