Climate Change and Plant Rhizosphere Microbiomes: An Experiential Course-Embedded Research Project

American Society for Microbiology. 1752 N Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 202-737-3600; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://journals.asm.org/journal/jmbe

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4

Plants (Botany); Microbiology; Science Instruction; Teaching Methods; Genetics; Scientific Research; Correlation; Metadata; Simulation; Natural Disasters; Programming Languages; Information Systems; Climate; College Students; Laboratory Safety; Course Descriptions

1935-7877
1935-7885

The current and ongoing challenges brought on by climate change will require future scientists who have hands-on experience using advanced molecular techniques, can work with large data sets, and can make correlations between metadata and microbial diversity. A course-embedded research project can prepare students to answer complex research questions that might help plants adapt to climate change. The project described herein uses plants as a host to study the impact of climate change-induced drought on host-microbe interactions through next-generation DNA sequencing and analysis using a command-line program. Specifically, the project studies the impact of simulated drought on the rhizosphere microbiome of Fast Plants rapid cycling "Brassica rapa" using inexpensive greenhouse supplies and 16S rRNA V3/V4 Illumina sequencing. Data analysis is performed with the freely accessible Python-based microbiome bioinformatics platform QIIME 2.

As Provided

2024

EJ1437739