This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Microbial biology for FY2004. 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 "Assessing nitrogen fixation in estuaries using molecular tools." This research seeks to understand how nitrogen-fixing bacteria respond to increasing nitrogen loads. It explores the fundamental controls on nitrogen processing at the microbial level. A suite of molecular tools including construction of clone libraries, DGGE, and RT-PCR are being used to address questions that relate to the role nitrogen fixing bacteria play in the nitrogen cycling of temperate salt marshes and sea grass beds.
