NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: From genomes to phenomes: the rules of life that govern bacterial-fungal-plant symbioses

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. For instance, bacteria and a certain kind of fungi (called ectomycorrhizal fungi) associate with plants and help drive the processes that link agriculture, ecosystem health, and climate patterns.

However, knowledge of bacterial-fungal interactions currently lacks detailed descriptions of which bacterial-fungal relationships persist in the environment and which bacterial-fungal relationships work together (symbiotically) to contribute to plant growth and development. This research will investigate the fundamentals of these complex relationships to the end of establishing models that determine how plants develop in complex environments.

Moreover, this project will provide the fellow with the interdisciplinary training needed to implement large scale, microbial-based ecosystem sustainability goals and will facilitate partnerships with graphic designers and local organizations to put forth a series of virtual animations that link underrepresented groups to the arts and sciences.

This research will directly test the Baas Becking Hypothesis—which states that the environment (e.g., plants) selects from a homogenous pool of organismal partners—by determining the composition of plant-associated bacterial-fungal partners across the coastal plain of California. To better understand the mechanistic details (genotypes-to-phenotypes) that drive bacterial-fungal-plant relationships, top-down (i.e., metagenomic sequencing) and bottom-up (i.e., plant bioassays) approaches will be combined to 1) establish prevalent plant-associated bacterial-fungal interactions, 2) uncover the degree of genetic overlap and dissimilarity between bacterial-fungal plant-associated communities across microscale (proximal and distal to plant root systems) and landscape (California coastline) scales, and 3) determine the importance of select bacterial-fungal interactions and functions for mediating microbial community assemblages and fostering plant development.

Resultantly, two models/rules of life will be tested: 1) symbioses depend as much on biotic context as on abiotic context; and 2) because dominant mutualisms change over space, this leads to predicable changes in enzymatic activity and community assemblages that impact Earth system functions (e.g., shifts in oligotrophic bacteria that are more chitinolytic than cellulolytic). Further, the fellow will gain critical training in microbial ecology (i.e., micro- and macroscales) to the end of generating predictive models that undergird ecosystem functioning with plant-microbe interactions.

Finally, this project will generate virtual exhibits that will anthropomorphize plant-microbe communities to demonstrate how diverse relationships in life strengthen the social fabric of our communities.

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.