Award Abstract # 1611948
NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

NSF Org: DBI
Division of Biological Infrastructure
Recipient:
Initial Amendment Date: July 11, 2016
Latest Amendment Date: July 11, 2016
Award Number: 1611948
Award Instrument: Fellowship Award
Program Manager: Amanda Simcox
asimcox@nsf.gov
 (703)292-8165
DBI
 Division of Biological Infrastructure
BIO
 Directorate for Biological Sciences
Start Date: January 1, 2017
End Date: December 31, 2018 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $138,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $138,000.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2016 = $138,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Holly Lutz (Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Lutz Holly L
Ithaca
NY  US  14850
Sponsor Congressional District: 19
Primary Place of Performance: Argonne National Laboratory
Lemont
IL  US  60439-4801
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
11
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Broadening Participation of Gr
Primary Program Source: 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):
Program Element Code(s): 115700
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.074

ABSTRACT

Postdoctoral Fellow: Holly Lutz
Proposal Number: 1611948

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2016, Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow to increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Holly Lutz is "The Bat Microbiome Project." The host institutions for this fellowship are the University of Chicago (primary), Argonne National Laboratory, and the Field Museum of Natural History, and the sponsoring scientists are Jack Gilbert and Bruce Patterson.

The goal of this research is to study the 'microbiome' of bats, i.e., microbes that live in and on bats. The Fellow is focusing on microbial symbionts (bacteria and viruses) of African bats, establishing baseline data for this important and vulnerable group. The Fellow is combining these microbial data with information about the evolutionary history and ecology of each bat species to assess what factors drive patterns of bat-microbe associations. The Fellow is also using information about the cutaneous microbiome of particular bat species to examine whether microbes indirectly influence rates of malarial parasite transmission by affecting the behavior of ectoparasitic vectors (e.g. bat flies). By working closely with natural history museums, both in the US and abroad, the Fellow's research is both relying on, and producing, data in the form of vouchered specimens and cryogenically preserved materials derived from bats.

The Fellow is receiving training in the latest metagenomic sequencing and bioinformatic methods. The project is also fundamentally international and collaborative in nature. One of the sponsoring institutions, the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) in Chicago, has a long history of supporting scientific capacity building in Africa, and the Fellow's Bat Microbiome Project involves the participation and training of many undergraduate and graduate students from African universities. Some of these students will receive advanced training in the US at the FMNH, and will interact with high school and undergraduate volunteers and interns at the museum. In summers, the Fellow is also mentoring high school students from underrepresented groups who will work on some aspect of the Bat Microbiome Project at the FMNH, thereby helping them prepare for academic pursuits in STEM fields. Students are learning about the fundamentals of host-microbe interactions through the lens of the Bat Microbiome Project, as they develop and execute independent projects related to this research.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Barrow, L.N., McNew, S.M., Mitchell, N., Galen, S.C., Lutz, H.L., Skeen, H., Valqui, T., Weckstein, J.D., Witt, C.C. "Deeply conserved susceptibility in a multi-host, multi-parasite system" Ecology Letters , v.22 , 2019 , p.987 10.1111/ele.13263
Fecchio, A., Bell, J.A., Pinheiro, R., Cueto, V., Gorosito, C., Lutz, H.L., Gaiotti, M., Paiva, L., França, L., Toledo-Lima, G., Tolentino, M., Pinho, J., Tkach, V., Fontana, C., Grande, J., Santillán, M., Caparroz, R., Roos, A., Bessa, R., Nogueira, W., "Avian host composition, local speciation, and dispersal drive the regional assembly of avian malaria parasites in South American birds." Molecular Ecology , v.28 , 2019 , p.2681 10.1111/mec.15094
Fecchio, A., Wells, K., Bell, J. A., Tkach, V. V., Lutz, H. L., Weckstein, J. D., Clegg, S. M., Clark, N. J. "Climate variation influences host specificity in avian malaria parasites." Ecology Letters , v.22 , 2019 , p.547 10.1111/ele.13215
Lutz, H. L., Ramírez-Puebla T., Abbo L., Durand A., Schlundt C., Sjaarda A. K., Gottel N., Hanlon R. T., Gilbert J. A., Mark Welch J. L. "A simple microbiome in the European common Cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis." mSystems , v.4 , 2019 , p.pii: e001 10.1128/mSystems.00177-19
Phillips C. D., Dunnum J. L., Dowler R. C., Bradley L. C., Garner H. J., MacDonald K. A., Lim B.K., Revelez M. A., Campbell M. L.,Lutz, H. L., Cook J. A., Bradley R. D., and the Systematic Collections Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists. "Curatorial guidelines and standards of the American Society of Mammalogists for collections of genetic resources." Journal of Mammalogy , v.100 , 2019 , p.1690 10.1093/jmammal/gyz111

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The Bat Microbiome Project, led by Dr. Holly Lutz with support from a two-year NSF PRFB (2016-2018), has resulted in a number of novel insights into the ecology and evolutionary history of Afrotropical bats and their bacterial symbionts. Throughout the course of the project, over 700 individual bats representing 10 taxonomic families, 21 genera, and 32 species were sampled for study. Museum vouchered specimens (accessioned at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA) include hosts, microbial samples from the gut, skin, and oral cavity, ectoparasites, blood, and other tissues that have been cryogenically preserved for future study. Key findings from this work include an apparent absence of phylosymbiosis between bats and their bacterial symbiosis across all three anatomical sites studied, i.e. lack of congruent pattern between host phylogeny and bacterial community composition (Fig. 1). The absence of this pattern, which we have also found to be shared with birds, suggests the possibility that the evolution of flight has led to a decreased dependence on microbial symbionts for key functions (e.g. digestion and nutrient acquisition). This hypothesis is supported by results from compositional analyses of the bat microbiome across the many taxonomic groups included in this project, which have identified Proteobacteria as the dominant bacterial phylum in bats (Fig. 2). Despite these findings, several bacterial groups were found to be significantly associated with bats from different dietary guilds (e.g. frugivores and insectivores), including representatives from the order Lactobacillales - many of which are fermenting bacteria - found in fruit bats. To examine whether these statistically identified relationships have biological significance for bat hosts, the Bat Microbiome Project is now utilizing the aforementioned cryogenically preserved specimens to explore spatial relationships between bacterial symbionts and host cells via fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) (Fig. 3). Although this work is still in progress, preliminary results suggest that bacteria in the gut are transient rather than resident. In addition to examining interactions between bacteria and the bat gut, correlations between the bat skin microbiome and rates of ectoparasitism have been assessed using data collected for the Bat Microbiome Project. Preliminary results suggest significant links between bacterial community complexity (e.g. network complexity and stability) and the presence or absence of nycteribid bat flies (dipteran vectors of malaria). These findings have important implications for similar systems, such as the human-mosquito-malaria system. Future work includes continued use of FISH to investigate the spatial organization of bacteria in the bat gut, and the application of additional molecular and sequencing methods to quantify bacteria and assess microbiome function via metagenomic analyses. Throughout the course of this project, a number of undergraduate and graduate students have been trained in field, laboratory, and bioinformatic methods. In particular, students in Kenya and Uganda, where sampling took place, have been extensively trained in specimen collection and preparation for museum quality data, as well as provided with guidance in grant writing and formation of hypothesis-driven research. Students elsewhere have been trained in laboratory methods, and been introduced to bioinformatics methods and pipelines for analysis of microbiome data. Results of the Bat Microbiome Project have been disseminated via professional meetings and public outreach forums, and are currently under consideration for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

 

 

 

 


Last Modified: 07/05/2019
Modified by: Holly L Lutz

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