RII Track-4: Leveraging fermented foods to understand microbial interactions under changing environments and broaden scientific training opportunities

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

Microbes such as bacteria and fungi are crucial to both human and environmental health. Fermented foods exemplify the importance of microbial communities because microbes drive the fermentation that results in the flavors, textures, extended shelf-life and even some health benefits of these foods. Many of these foods have multi-faceted significance, including nutritional and cultural importance as well as roles in food security due to extended shelf life. Working with locally important fermented foods, such as taro (poi), this project will determine how the success and abundance of microbial species is determined not only by the abiotic environment (e.g., temperature, moisture, acidity, nutrients) but also by biotic interactions (e.g., helpful or harmful influences of other organisms). This project will increase research capacity, advance scientific knowledge with basic and applied importance, and initiate a research program that will provide culturally relevant scientific training opportunities. The fellowship will take place at the University of California, in the laboratory of a world leader in fermented food microbiology. Through this fellowship and collaboration, the PI and student will develop expertise in cutting edge molecular methods to identify the traits that determine bacterial fitness. Integration of these tools with the PI’s complementary expertise in microbial community ecology will substantially increase the PI’s research capacity and the reach of her research program while strengthening the microbiome science program at the University of Hawai‘i. This project aims to determine the fitness consequences of microbial interactions under changing environmental conditions. The project will specifically focus on microbial interactions during ecological succession in locally important fermented foods, but the scope of the research question is broadly important across basic and applied microbial ecology. The project will employ recently developed high throughput molecular methods to identify genes or putative traits needed for bacterial survival. These mechanistic methods will be integrated with a community ecological framework to understand the fitness consequences of microbial interactions (i.e., how microbes affect each other’s fitness), what molecular mechanisms underly those effects, and how the interactions change due to shifting environmental conditions. The research will advance scientific understanding of why certain microbial species are successful or abundant in a given environment. The new knowledge generated can benefit society by informing future efforts to predict the beneficial value of microbial communities and eventually engineer microbial communities for desired functions. This project will develop a basic research model focused on local, culturally important fermented foods, which have historically been understudied. By creating culturally relevant research training opportunities, this project will foster broader participation in science. 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.