Nyack Microbial Observatory Project

University Of Montana, Missoula MT

Investigators

Abstract

Drs. James Gannon, William Holben, Jack Stanford and William Woessner of the University of Montana have been funded to establish the Nyack Microbial Observatory project. Beginning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana and the southern part of Glacier National Park, the Middle Fork of the Flathead River flows through narrow canyons until it reaches the glacier-carved Nyack Flood Plain. The floodplain is home to numerous wildlife species, including threatened grizzly bear, gray wolf, and bull trout, but their invisible essential partners, the microbes, are no less important. As the river enters the upstream end of the valley, 30 percent of the flow enters a shallow aquifer (hyporheic) before eventually re-entering to the river channel down stream. An abundance of large-bodied insects with life cycle stages uniquely tied to the hyporheic habitat have been discovered here. This terrestrial to aquatic interface can be visualized as a pristine food web where nutrients washed from the forest floor are "re-packaged" into microorganisms and then transferred to aquatic insects, which, in turn, are consumed by fish, and so on up the food chain. Hyporheic habitats, found throughout the world, are critical to nutrient cycles that maintain and rejuvenate all of life in the river corridor. Despite their importance, the microorganisms of the hyporheos are largely unknown. Understanding who they are and what controls their diversity and abundance is the overarching goal of the Nyack Microbial Observatory. A separate NSF Biocomplexity project has mapped the Nyack hyporheic boundary in 3 dimensions and has installed approximately 100 sampling wells. Using this infrastructure, the Nyack Microbial Observatory will explore the hyporheic community to quantify, cultivate, and characterize novel microorganisms and measure factors that shape the microbial community and link microbial diversity to higher organisms. We seek a broader understanding of floodplain/river health as mediated by flux of water and materials through the river and its floodplain aquifer. The 5 year project will use a suite of innovative molecular, microbiological, and hydrological tools to monitor microbial communities across seasons and along this unique hyporheic gradient. It will also strengthen ties between microbiologists and ecosystem scientists so that they can better understand organismal interactions and processes across many scales. Undergraduate and graduate students alike will be trained in a multidisciplinary environment in which microbial diversity science is closely linked to geology, landscape ecology and ecosystem function.