EAPSI: Reconstructing the evolutionary history of coral-microbe associations to identify microbial taxa important to the health of their coral host

EAPSI：重建珊瑚-微生物关联的进化历史，以确定对其珊瑚宿主健康重要的微生物类群

• 批准号: 1414820
• 负责人: Ryan McMinds
• 金额: $ 0.51万
• 依托单位: McMinds Ryan C
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-06-01 至 2015-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1414820&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAPSI; Reconstructing; evolutionary; history; coral

Coral reef ecosystems are in a state of rapid global decline. Research has suggested that many important stressors, including elevated sea temperatures, nutrient loading, and disease, may harm corals by disrupting their natural associations with bacteria and other microbes. Microbes as a whole have been shown to play important roles in coral health by providing essential nutrients, resisting pathogens, and even by cueing development. However, it has been challenging to identify the specific microbial taxa that provide these benefits. The health consequences to corals of stressor-mediated microbial community shifts are thus difficult to assess. This project will attempt to discover physiologically important microbes by reconstructing the evolutionary history of coral-microbe associations and identifying signatures of natural selection for particular associations. The research will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. David Bourne, a noted expert in coral microbiology, at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The diverse reefs of Australia harbor up to 15 of the 21 major coral clades, providing a unique opportunity to sample a broad selection of tissue from evolutionarily divergent but geographically concurrent coral species. Currently, the microbiomes of only 3 of these clades have received any significant attention. A baseline description of these communities, created using high throughput sequencing of marker-genes and metagenomes, will allow the identification of taxa that cluster within particular coral clades. This analysis will be performed by treating microbial taxa and functions as character traits that can be tested against a null model of neutral evolution. Future studies will be able to focus on these taxa as putative mutualists, whose disruption may reduce coral health. This research will eventually allow more accurate prediction of the environmental effects of various environmental stressors. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Australian Academy of Science.

珊瑚礁生态系统处于全球快速下降的状态。研究表明，许多重要的压力源，包括升高的海温，养分负荷和疾病，可能会通过破坏其与细菌和其他微生物的自然关联来伤害珊瑚。整个微生物已被证明通过提供必需的营养，抵抗病原体甚至通过提示发育来在珊瑚健康中起重要作用。但是，确定提供这些好处的特定微生物分类单元一直是一项挑战。因此，难以评估压力介导的微生物群落转移的珊瑚对珊瑚的健康后果。该项目将尝试通过重建珊瑚微生物关联的进化史并确定特定关联的自然选择签名来发现生理上重要的微生物。这项研究将与澳大利亚海洋科学研究所的著名珊瑚微生物学专家戴维·伯恩（David Bourne）合作进行。澳大利亚的多样化珊瑚礁拥有多达21个主要珊瑚进化枝中的15个，提供了独特的机会，可以从进化上不同但地理上并发的珊瑚物种中采样广泛的组织。目前，仅有3个进化枝的微生物组受到了任何重大关注。这些社区的基线描述是使用标记生成和宏基因组的高吞吐量测序创建的，将允许识别聚集在特定珊瑚进化枝中的分类单元。该分析将通过将微生物分类单元和功能作为特征性状来进行，可以根据中性进化的零模型进行测试。未来的研究将能够将这些分类单元作为推定的共同主义者，他们的破坏可能会降低珊瑚健康。这项研究最终将更准确地预测各种环境压力源的环境影响。该NSF EAPSI奖与澳大利亚科学学院合作。