This Postdoctoral Research Fellowship award to Dr. Benjamin Parker is supported by both the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Office of International Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation. During the 24-month fellowship, Dr. Parker will work on a project titled, "Variation in the outcome of an insect-symbiont association: a role for host genotype" under the sponsorship of Professor H Charles Godfray at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England.
Animals host complex communities of microbes that play an important role in health and disease. In recent years, scientists have determined that there is a great deal of variation in the types of microbes that inhabit different individuals, and in what effect these microbes have on their hosts. The goal of this research is to use a simple model system to learn about the ecological and evolutionary forces generating variation in animal-microbe interactions. Pea aphids host a species of bacteria that protects them from a natural fungal pathogen. Recent work has shown that some aphids are better protected from this fungus by bacteria than others. This project will combine next-generation sequencing and immunological techniques to determine the role that hosts are playing in shaping their associations with beneficial bacteria, and why hosts differ in these associations.
By learning about this simple animal-microbe system, this work will contribute to a broader understanding of how ecology and evolution shape associations with microbes in more complex individuals. In addition, aphids are invasive agricultural pests, and fungal pathogens are used as a way of controlling aphid populations. Developing an understanding of how crop pests resist biocontrol agents is important to agricultural management. This project will also involve the development of a series of classroom exercises that use aphids to expose students to natural history. The exercises will have students set up and monitor natural communities of aphids, which are found commonly throughout the US, and will explore how pathogens and predators influence populations.
This award provides a unique opportunity for a US scientist to collaborate with foreign scientists, and utilize the unique facilities, expertise and experimental conditions available abroad.
