Excellence in Research: Evaluating Environmental Stressor Effects on Soil Bacterial Traits

这项卓越研究（EiR）项目的目标是开展跨学科的合作研究，以调查先前的环境营养条件如何影响细菌的种间和种内相互作用。具体而言，该研究将研究营养物质的变化如何改变细菌特性，如形成孢子和修饰细胞壁的物理特征，以及在微生物-微生物和植物-微生物关系背景下负责物理特征变化的遗传特征，抗生素耐药性和土壤养分获取。这项工作的结果在农业、自然资源管理和保护部门具有广泛的国家利益。这项工作通过在本科和研究生阶段的研究机会以及通过在农村公立学校6-8年级共享教育内容来造福社会。这项研究将与费耶特维尔州立大学（FSU）的本科生教育相结合。费耶特维尔州立大学是一所历史悠久的黑人大学，专注于非裔美国学生的教育，女性学生和军队或与军队有关的学生人数较多。该项目将通过FSU提供的基于课程的本科生研究体验（CURE）的设计、实施和评估来支持教学与研究的整合能力，该项目将与东卡罗莱纳大学（ECU）正在进行的CURE和本科生/研究生主导的项目相关联。微生物生态学和生物多样性研究的整合将提高历史上边缘化人群的STEM教育质量，并增强STEM劳动力的多样性和培训。与未受精的细菌相比，长期的营养丰富将导致更具竞争力（而非互惠性）的细菌种群（例如，抗菌素耐药性增加，生长速度加快），本研究将通过关注三个目标来验证这一假设：1)通过基于性状的表型分析检查可培养的湿地土壤细菌，以了解持续的营养富集如何影响对资源获取重要的细菌性状；2)使用比较基因组学方法确定营养丰富与营养有限环境中分离的细菌之间的基因型差异；3)通过向暴露于施肥梯度的湿地草中添加细菌接种剂（来自施肥或未施肥的土壤）来检查先前的营养条件如何影响微生物-微生物和植物-微生物的相互作用。费耶特维尔州立大学和东卡罗莱纳大学的团队将合作进行比较基因组学和功能实验室分析。在生态环境下评估细菌性状将扩大我们对资源限制如何影响土壤微生物性状多样性的理解，从而促进农业和恢复中有益的植物-微生物相互作用。总的来说，这项研究将为参与者提供产生新知识，建立和完善批判性思维技能的机会，并提高学生进入研究生和/或专业学校以及劳动力的整体竞争力。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。

The goal of this Excellence in Research (EiR) project is to conduct interdisciplinary, collaborative research to investigate how prior environmental nutrient conditions influence bacterial inter- and intraspecific interactions. Specifically, the research will examine how changes in nutrients alter bacterial traits such as the physical features of forming spores and modifying cell walls and genetic features that are responsible for changes to physical features, antibiotic resistance, and soil nutrient access in the context of microbe-microbe and plant-microbe relationships. Results from this work are of broad national interests in agricultural, natural resources management and conservation sectors. This work benefits society through research opportunities at the undergraduate and graduate levels and through shared educational content for grades 6-8 at rural public schools. This research will be integrated with the education of undergraduates at Fayetteville State University (FSU), a Historically Black University focusing on the education of African American students, with high female, and military or military-affiliated student populations. This project will support teaching-research integration capacity through the design, implementation, and assessment of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) offered at FSU, which will be linked to ongoing CUREs and undergraduate/graduate student-led projects at East Carolina University (ECU). The integration of microbial ecology and biodiversity research will improve the STEM education quality of historically marginalized populations and enhance diversity and training of the STEM workforce. This research will test the hypothesis that long-term nutrient enrichment will result in more competitive (and less mutualistic) bacterial populations (e.g., increased antimicrobial resistance, increased growth rates) compared to the unfertilized counterparts by focusing on three objectives: 1) examining culturable wetland soil bacteria by trait-based phenotypic analyses to understand how ongoing nutrient enrichment influences bacterial traits that are important for resource acquisition, 2) identifying genotypic differences between bacterial isolates from nutrient-rich vs. nutrient-limited environments using comparative genomic approaches, and 3) examining how previous nutrient conditions influence microbe-microbe and plant-microbe interactions by adding bacterial inocula (from fertilized or unfertilized soils) to a wetland grass exposed to a fertilization gradient. The Fayetteville State University and East Carolina University teams will collaboratively conduct comparative genomics and functional lab-based assays. Evaluating bacterial traits in an ecological context will expand our understanding of how resource limitation influences soil microbial trait diversity with consequences for promoting beneficial plant-microbe interactions in agriculture and restoration. Collectively, this research will provide participants the opportunity to generate new knowledge, establish and refine critical thinking skills, and enhance the overall competitiveness of students entering graduate and/or professional school as well as the workforce.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.