Collaborative Research: RII FEC: Interdisciplinary Program of Advancing Climate Extreme Resilience in Soybean

Climate change is the grand challenge of the 21st century. It poses a significant threat to the health of humans, livestock, and agriculture by causing economic disruption that disproportionately affects marginalized communities. For instance, heat and drought are expected to reduce soybean yields by 40%, and these effects are predicted to be particularly severe in most Southern US soybean-growing areas, which are already suffering disproportionately from climate change.

To address this challenge, this project brings together a team of scientists, educators, social and economic researchers, extension specialists, and outreach professionals. They will assess the impact of climate change on soybean yields, from the cellular level to the whole plant, as well as on associated microbial communities, utilizing advanced technologies and artificial intelligence.

The team will also develop solutions to boost soybean yields. The positive impacts of this project will be evaluated by social and economic scientists. The project also focuses on education and workforce development.

An important goal of this project is to train and support students, teachers, and early-career researchers, with a special emphasis on ensuring inclusive representation in STEM. The Developing Diverse Researchers program plays a crucial role in this effort, providing training for teachers and students and reaching thousands of K-12 students annually.

The results of the project will also benefit other crops and improve food security both in the US and globally. By integrating innovative research with education and community outreach, the team will build a sustainable future for agriculture and positively impact communities most affected by climate change.

To combat climate change-related decline of soybean yield, this initiative conducts extensive research from "single cell to field-based phenomics." The team includes 11 STEM experts, social and economic scientists, extension specialists, and outreach professionals. The project aims to enhance soybean resilience to heat and drought through five key strategies by generating single-cell level data, using advanced sensing to collect detailed morphological and physiological data, evaluating soil chemistry, root structures, and microbial communities, utilizing network science and Artificial Intelligence to find novel RNA markers and beneficial microbes, and testing selected markers and microbes in field conditions.

The project aims to enhance sustainable soybean production by understanding stress responses from cellular to field levels. It integrates data from diverse scientific disciplines to develop precision agriculture solutions and assess impacts on marginalized communities. Moreover, the project employs a comprehensive, multipronged approach with eight programs to develop a diverse STEM workforce in the South.

Key among these is the Developing Diverse Researchers program, which will train 40 K-12 teachers, 30 summer interns, 200 students in Summer Institutes, and indirectly reach over 6,000 K-12 students and thousands of family and community members annually. Overall, the project aims to advance knowledge from single-cell -omics to phenomics, develop strategies that integrate data from various scientific fields and technologies, provide precision agriculture solutions using cultured microbes in field conditions, and assess the impact on diverse communities.

Moreover, it will broaden the pipeline for diverse individuals to enter STEM research careers and inform the public about climate change and its impact on food security. This project is funded by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement-Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (RII-FEC) program. The RII-FEC program builds inter-jurisdictional collaborative teams of EPSCoR investigators in focus areas consistent with the NSF Strategic Plan.

RII-FEC projects include researchers from at least two EPSCoR eligible jurisdictions with complementary expertise and resources necessary to address challenges, which neither party could address as well or as rapidly independently.

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.