This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Microbial biology for FY2003. The fellowship supports training and research on the basic biology of protozoan, microalgal, fungal, archaeal, bacterial and viral species that are not generally considered to be model organisms. Further, it provides opportunities for recent doctoral recipients to obtain additional training in microbial biology, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond the research experiences during the undergraduate and graduate training. These fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including foreign locations.
The research and training plan is entitled "Placing soil microorganisms into an ecosystem context: the dynamics of microbial communities in soils of the southwestern U.S." The proposed research addresses two fundamental and important questions: (1) how are soil microbial communities influenced by changes in vegetation and climate? and (2) how do microbial community dynamics influence soil carbon cycling processes? This work promises to improve our understanding of how climate change and the widespread conversion of grasslands to shrublands in the southwestern U.S. affects soil carbon storage.
