NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Phage life history and evolution as a driver of microbial ecology

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. In virtually every environment on earth, many kinds of bacteria and viruses co-exist within microbial communities.

Different kinds of communities perform different functions important for humans, such as nutrient absorption in the gut, chemical cycling in the soil, and fermentation of food and drink. These functions depend on the stable coexistence of different community members, each of which is constantly evolving and responding to environmental changes. This research will explore how phage, a group of viruses that infect bacteria, impact the stability of microbial communities over time.

Phage can quickly evolve to infect different types of bacteria and transfer important genes between them. Depending on the environment, they may either kill bacteria outright or remain dormant for generations. Understanding the behavior and evolution of phage in diverse settings will give scientists more tools to control microbial communities, especially in the face of environmental change.

This research will also support teaching, mentoring, and outreach by the Fellow to improve scientific communication and participation of underrepresented groups.

Although diverse bacteriophage are expected to be key drivers of bacterial population dynamics, common sequencing approaches are unable to resolve phage life history strategies or host ranges within complex microbial communities. Consequently, many fundamentals of phage-bacteria interactions remain unknown, including how quickly host range evolves; how phage life history is shaped by environmental stress; or the overall extent to which phage drive bacterial abundance and community stability.

This research will combine emerging single-cell sequencing approaches with culture-based phenotype assays and environmental stress experiments to characterize how phage behavior and evolution impact microbial community stability. To understand the interactions between ecological factors and phage proprieties, the Fellow will perform natural community sampling from diverse environments as well as manipulative experiments with synthetic communities in a model laboratory organism.

Through this project, the Fellow will develop laboratory and analysis skills in complex microbial systems, collaborate with diverse microbiome scientists, and produce scientific publications with the aim of improving functional control of microbial communities. The Fellow will also gain experience teaching and mentoring undergraduates and work to improve transparency and inclusion in science.

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.