This three-year National Science Foundation project grant of $197,354 will fund research into the effects of nectar microbes on pollination mutualisms. Led by North Carolina State University, the project aims to characterize nectar microbial communities across five wildflower species in the Rocky Mountains. Researchers will study how nectar microbes influence floral odor, nectar chemistry, and visitor behaviors. They will also assess impacts on plant reproduction components. By exploring...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $240,000 in funding to support a postdoctoral research fellowship focused on investigating the role of symbiotic yeasts in structuring bumble bee nest microbial communities. The research aims to uncover how antimicrobial compounds produced by these yeasts impact the growth of detrimental microbes, bee health, and bee behavior. Key activities include testing variations in...
This $241,419 National Science Foundation project grant supports research into the protective symbiosis mechanism of honey bees at the University of Michigan from October 2022 to October 2023. The goal is to characterize how a bacterial symbiont protects honey bee brood from fungal pathogens by investigating its antifungal properties. Researchers will use microbiology, genetics, genomics, chemistry and bee rearing to determine how the trait evolved and identify the antifungal metabolite...
This NSF Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) Project Grant award of $600,000 to Emory University will investigate how microbiome communities, which are communities of bacteria and other microbes that live in and on organisms, can resist change and transition to alternate states. The project will use the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model host to better define the stability and properties of alternate microbiome states, as well as how factors like antibiotic treatment and host...
This $361,227 federal Project Grant award, provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) program, supports research to investigate how insect immune systems interact with beneficial and pathogenic microbes across different aphid host species. The project, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, aims to use transcriptome sequencing and immune assays to test the hypothesis that host immune suppression is a key mechanism enabling...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Rutgers, The State University a Project Grant under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to establish a new model system to study the relationship between gut microbiome and host niche specialization. The $497,916 project, awarded on September 15, 2023, will examine the gut microbiomes of honeypot ants, which can store food through specialized gut morphology. The research aims to understand how gut microbiomes may help with long-term...
This two-year, $276,000 National Science Foundation project grant funds research into understanding the impact of microbiomes on plant performance in a warming climate. Led by researchers at Durham, North Carolina, the grant supports a postdoctoral fellow investigating how microbial communities inside and on plant surfaces change at elevated temperatures and the effects on plant health. Using molecular, multi-omic, and mathematical modeling approaches, the fellow will examine simultaneous...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) Federal Grant Program will support research to determine the drivers and life-history consequences of gut microbiome seasonality in bumble bees. The $878,377 award, effective July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2030, will enable researchers at the University of California, Irvine to use microsensors, microscopy, and controlled experiments to understand how seasonal environmental factors influence the...
This two-year, $138,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) will fund postdoctoral research exploring the effects of rapid evolution on alternative community states at multiple spatial scales. The fellow, Lucas Nell, will conduct laboratory experiments and develop mathematical models to study how trait evolution influences the composition of alternative microbial community states in monkeyflower nectar and their prevalence across a...
This three-year $240,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports research investigating host-pathogen dynamics in response to resource pulses in bees. The grant was awarded under the Biological Sciences program of the NSF Division of Biological Infrastructure to study how mass blooming cover crops and surrounding landscape floral resources impact bee disease resistance, pathogen infection, and transmission. Specifically, the fellow will examine how resource pulses from vetch crops...