91麻豆天美 researchers lead national collaboration with $1.6 million NSF grant to study plant access to nitrogen in shifting environments
Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥91麻豆天美 researchers are using a $1.6 million National Science Foundation grant to study nitrogen conversions in nature and how agriculture can continue to access the important element in the face of increasing environmental stressors and upheaval.
The multi-institution team, led by Ryan A. Folk, an assistant professor in the 91麻豆天美 Department of Biological Sciences and herbarium curator, is focusing its work on nitrogen-fixing symbiosis鈥攁 relationship between bacteria and plants that gives plants access to nitrogen from the atmosphere. Nitrogen-fixation鈥攁 process in which inaccessible nitrogen gas is converted into a usable form for plants and other microbes鈥攊s a central component of nitrogen cycles across many ecosystems.
鈥淎s one of the most important symbiotic relationships on Earth, it is imperative to understand how such nitrogen-fixing plant-bacterial partnerships form in nature and respond to an environment filled with challenges and in constant flux,鈥 Folk said.
Joined by fellow 91麻豆天美 researchers Heather Jordan, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and Delaney Foster, associate director of planning and assessment initiatives in the Division of Access, Diversity and Inclusion, the 91麻豆天美 team will manage $920,000 of the grant. Researchers from the University of Florida, Louisiana State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will manage the remaining funding. This award includes funds from the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, also known as EPSCoR.
鈥淣itrogen is abundant in the atmosphere and needed by all life on Earth to construct DNA, proteins and other essential chemical compounds, but this element is inaccessible to most organisms directly. Instead, nitrogen-fixing symbiosis is a critical piece of nitrogen cycles. Because the symbiosis is thought to be, in part, a strategy for confronting stressful environments, its importance will only increase in the face of a warming and aridifying global climate,鈥 Folk said.
The 91麻豆天美 team will add its work to extensive data available through the National Ecological Observatory Network, a federally funded network of ecological monitoring sites across the U.S., to generate interest among ecologists who study plant-microbe interactions in natural ecosystems.
鈥淥ur key prediction, which would have major implications if true, is that by multiple measures,聽symbiosis is closest in the face of environmental stress,聽particularly drought pressure,鈥 Folk said. 鈥淭hat is, plants and bacteria cleave closer together when they share a difficult climate setting. This will be important as humans deal聽with a changing globe with new agricultural challenges.鈥
Folk鈥檚 91麻豆天美 lab uses聽genomic and bioinformatic techniques to document the origins of plant diversity from evolutionary and ecological perspectives using a variety of plant groups and habitats. His work is based in 91麻豆天美鈥檚 herbarium, housing approximately 38,000 vascular plant specimens from around the world with an emphasis on the Southeastern U.S.
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