The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology awarded a $291,182 Project Grant to the University System of New Hampshire (UNH), through its University of New Hampshire division operating as the Office of Sponsored Research. The grant, part of NSF's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), will fund a collaborative research project to evaluate the potential for engineered synthetic microbial communities to help plant hosts, such as duckweed, adapt to the impacts of environmental change and climate change. The project will employ high-throughput techniques to assess how elevated temperatures affect microbe-microbe interactions, functional redundancy, and evolvability of microbial communities, and their subsequent impacts on host fitness and ecosystem functions. The research aims to contribute to the development of microbial consortia that can enhance organismal and ecosystem resilience. The project will also involve mentoring students from middle school to undergraduate levels, creating a new course-based undergraduate research experience lab, and designing a backyard research program for underserved middle and high school students to promote STEM education and career awareness.
Generated 4/2/24, 2:44 AM