NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

Wagner Maggie R, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF National Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2015. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Maggie R. Wagner is " Investigating the effects of intensive breeding on maize-associated fungal and bacterial communities and their impact on crop productivity " The host institutions for the fellowship are the North Carolina State University and Oregon State University and the sponsoring scientists are Dr. Peter Balint Kurti, Dr. Posy Busby, and Dr. James Holland. Bacteria and fungi living within leaves and roots can profoundly affect plant health, and are a potentially useful tool in sustainable agriculture. Plant genes partially control these microbial communities, letting certain microbes into the plant and keeping others out. It is unknown, however, whether genetic changes caused by intensive crop breeding have affected the composition of the microbiome. These experiments will expand our knowledge of the maize (corn) microbiome and improve our understanding of the links between plant genomes, plant-associated microbes, and crop productivity. The researcher will build her expertise in plant pathology, microbiology, and genomics while sharing results with agricultural researchers as well as public audiences at local schools and educational farms, and will enthusiastically recruit students of diverse backgrounds for participation in this project and mentorship in science career development. Successful integration of microbial improvement techniques into sustainable agriculture requires a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between plant genomes and microbiomes. Moving beyond descriptive studies, this project uses existing germplasm from current maize breeding programs to test predictions about how various genetic perturbations might alter the microbiome. The effects of hybridization, intense artificial selection, and introgression of disease-resistance loci on microbial endophyte communities will be measured using high-throughput amplicon sequencing, metatranscriptomics, and culture-based methods. Greenhouse re-inoculation experiments will then test whether breeding-induced microbiome alterations feed back to affect plant vigor and pathogen resistance. Data will be shared publicly at the NCBI Short Read Archive and repositories such as Dryad, and maize endophyte cultures will be shared on request.