Abstract DBI 9750197 Brendan Bohannan This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biosciences Related to the Environment for 1997. This fellowship provides an opportunity for the Fellow to gain additional scientific training beyond the doctoral degree and to pursue innovative and imaginative into the fundamental mechanisms underlying the interactions between organisms and their environment at the molecular, cellular, organismal, population, community and/or ecosystem level in any area of biology supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences of the National Science Foundation. Each fellowship supports a research and training plan to be carried out in a sponsoring laboratory. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled "Bacterial diversity and productivity of the environment." Environmental productivity is known to strongly influence plant and animal diversity. The effect on bacterial diversity, however, is poorly understood. The relationship between environmental productivity and bacterial diversity is being clarified by estimating the richness of bacterial species in natural ponds that vary in productivity. Mathematical modeling of and further experiments in field mesocosms and laboratory microcosms will be conducted to assess the mechanisms determining diversity.
