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 "The Relationship Between Microbial Community and Nutrient Cycling at an Aquifer Contaminated with Landfill Runoff" Few studies have examined microbial community composition and function at contaminated sites where natural attenuation is the key remediation method. The proposed research, to be performed at a landfill-leachate-contaminated aquifer, will attempt to correlate changes in the plume geochemistry and carbon content with microbial community structure (DNA) and function (RNA).
