NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Viral-microbial Founder Effects, Horizontal Gene Transfer, and Adaptation on Successional Coral Reefs

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. This research project will contribute crucial techniques and information which include improving the health of the marine environment and increasing food security for human populations.

The overarching goal is to build healthy coral reef habitat in order to increase marine food resources and other ecological goods and services. Indeed, bacterial and viral community composition and its trajectory determines whether a coral reef thrives or dies. This study will help to shed light on the ecological role of coral microbiome in the context of rebuilding coral reefs.

Therefore, this work will be important in monitoring the health of these reefs and understanding their capacity to increase ecosystem services. It will also include mentoring students and outreach that will extend to a diverse public audience on these global scale issues.

This project will combine molecular and ecological approaches with coral reef restoration technologies to understand how environmental and macro-/micro-organismal components of coral reefs lead to success of ecosystem functioning. The experiment will be conducted in Ranobe Bay, a 32 km coastline that is home to 13 villages in southwest Madagascar. This consists of investigating the microbial and viral dynamics of the coral microbiome and local environment using an in situ before-after-control-impact study design assessing the effectiveness of seeding eight artificial reefs from a healthy common garden.

Using a combination of microbial/viral genomic techniques, coral reef microbiome selection, microbial function, and horizontal gene flow will be quantified and assessed. This study highlights the rules of life using coral reefs as a model ecosystem to investigate the interactions between genomes (coral reef organisms and their microbes), their environment, and their phenotypic response in the context of rebuilding reefs for restoration.

Training objectives will consist of teaching, engagement, and working alongside local communities and institutions in the study region. This includes mentoring and training Malagasy students in marine molecular research, increasing racial and cultural diversity in marine science, public communication, building data resources for reef and human health monitoring, developing reef restoration tools to improve food security for malnourished human populations, and monitoring water quality for human health.

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.