Collaborative Research: Synthetic microbial consortia for organismal resilience and reproducible ecosystem services in changing environments

随着我们这个星球的气候继续变化，找到新的方法来减轻其影响至关重要。微生物群由以较大物种为生的较小有机体组成，可以影响宿主对环境变化的反应。这个项目评估我们是否以及如何组装合成微生物群，以帮助宿主物种应对环境变化的影响。由于微生物群落的巨大多样性，有许多方法来设计合成微生物群，这使得很难确定它们对宿主物种的影响所依据的原则。研究人员将利用高通量技术同时评估不同合成群落和环境条件对植物寄主的影响。这一结果将扩大我们对环境变化如何改变微生物对宿主的影响以及人工合成微生物群落如何帮助宿主适应不断变化的气候的理解。研究人员将积极指导从中学到本科的学生，在合成微生物学尖端领域创建基于课程的本科研究体验实验室课程，并为服务不足的初中生和高中生设计后院研究计划，以提供培训，吸引他们对STEM可能的职业感兴趣。这项研究将探索不同研究领域的交叉，以研究宿主和微生物之间的相互作用，包括共生、进化生物学和生态系统功能。它将评估高温如何影响宿主-微生物相互作用的三个关键组成部分：(1)微生物-微生物相互作用及其对宿主适应性的影响，(2)功能冗余及其对生物多样性和生态系统功能的影响，以及(3)微生物组育种期间的进化性。为了实现这一目标，研究人员将跨越温度梯度收集浮萍，从浮萍和其他来源获取细菌，并在自动化、高通量平台上使用这些收集的大型多因素实验。这些收集、结果和实验方法将有助于微生物联盟的发展，以增强人类物种的生物和生态系统弹性。这一奖项反映了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。

As our planet's climate continues to change, finding new approaches to alleviate its impact is crucial. Microbiomes, which consist of smaller organisms making a living on larger species, can affect how their hosts respond to environmental change. This project evaluates whether and how we can assemble synthetic microbiomes to help host species cope with the impacts of environmental change. Due to the enormous diversity of microbial communities, there are numerous ways to engineer synthetic microbiomes, making it difficult to identify the principles that underpin their impacts on host species. The researchers will employ high-throughput techniques to simultaneously evaluate the impacts of different synthetic communities and environmental conditions on plant hosts. The results will expand our understanding of how environmental change alters the impacts of microbes on hosts and how engineered synthetic microbial communities may help hosts adapt to a changing climate. The researchers will actively mentor students from middle school to undergraduate level, create a new Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience Lab course in the cutting-edge field of synthetic microbiology, and design a backyard research program for under-served middle and high school students to provide training to attract their interest to possible careers in STEM. This study will explore the intersection of different research areas to study the interactions between hosts and microbes, including symbiosis, evolutionary biology, and ecosystem functioning. It will assess how elevated temperatures affect three crucial components of host-microbe interactions: (1) microbe-microbe interactions and their impact on host fitness, (2) functional redundancy and its effect on biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and (3) evolvability during microbiome breeding. To achieve this goal, the researchers will collect duckweed, a widespread aquatic plant, across a temperature gradient, acquire bacteria from duckweeds and other sources, and use these collections in large multifactorial experiments on an automated, high-throughput platform. The collections, results, and experimental methods will contribute to the development of microbial consortia that can enhance organismal and ecosystem resilience in the Anthropocene.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.