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 "Social behavior and signaling in attached bacteria". Experiments are testing mathematical models of bacterial behavioral ecology. Some of the experimental questions being addressed are Can related bacteria control their population density as a strategy to increase group fitness? Can small groups of bacteria use signaling to regulate foraging with extracellular enzymes? Also, gene expression studies in bacteria grown on microcosm surfaces (biofilms) are used to assess signal and enzyme production by individuals.
