This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) will fund a 5-year collaborative research study on the role of microbial symbionts in influencing host plant fitness and population dynamics. The $188,491 award was made to the University of New Mexico to investigate how fluctuations in the benefits provided by fungal endophytes to their grass host plants vary over time, potentially stabilizing host populations and promoting genetic...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant under the Biological Sciences program, awarded to the San Diego State University Research Foundation, will support research to investigate how microbial social interactions within soil communities influence ecosystem-level carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling. The $982,308 award, effective April 1, 2024 through March 31, 2027, will combine molecular and computational approaches to study bacterial communication and division of labor...
This National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology award for $138,000 provides funding from August 1, 2023 through July 31, 2025 to support research investigating the role of host-associated microbes in plant responses to global environmental stressors such as drought. Funded under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), the fellowship will advance understanding of microbial influences on host acclimation, adaptation, and population persistence under changing...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $407,065 to Iowa State University of Science and Technology to investigate the symbiotic relationship between a polyextremotolerant fungus and its photosynthetic microbial partners. The key objectives are to: Utilize omics data to uncover the molecular mechanisms regulating melanin production in the fungus when co-cultured with an algae and cyanobacterium. Develop and refine...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award, under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), provides $240,000 over three years starting on September 1, 2024 to fund a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology. The research aims to investigate the effects of bioengineered organisms on community assembly and ecosystem functioning in a soil microbial community. The fellow will use genetic engineering to create microbial consortia and study the impacts on community and...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $240,000 in funding from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2027. The grant supports a postdoctoral research fellowship focused on examining priority effects within and between fungal symbiont guilds associated with a native grass species, Schizachyrium scoparium. The research will manipulate the order of arrival of different arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and root endophytic fungi to...
This $307,069 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) funds the CRUSTNET research project at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). The key objectives of the four-year project are to: Determine global-scale drivers of functional biodiversity in biological soil crusts (biocrusts), which are ecologically crucial microbial communities covering significant parts of the Earth's surface. Investigate how biocrust biodiversity...
This National Science Foundation project grant award of $276,000 provides funding from September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2024 to support research investigating the effects of microbiome ecological and evolutionary origin on plant-microbiome coevolution. Funded under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), the fellowship will support a postdoctoral fellow's integrative research exploring how a microbiome's previous associations with plant hosts influence community adaptation and the...
This $706,641 Project Grant award, funded by the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), supports collaborative research on integrating plant-soil feedback mechanisms with resilience theory to understand and mitigate the impacts of severe drought on pinon-juniper woodlands in the western United States. The project tests the hypothesis that beneficial soil microbes, such as ectomycorrhizal fungi, are critical for pinon pine seedling recruitment and survival...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award, under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), provides $240,000 in funding for a postdoctoral research fellowship from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2028. The fellowship supports research and training focused on investigating the rules governing interactions between genomes, environment, and phenotypes of lichen holobionts (the lichen organism and its associated microbiome) in response to climate change. The key objectives are to:...