Biofuel crops, microbial communities, and world travel
I am focussing on the nitrogen-fixing members of the microbial community associated with these plants due to their ability to provide readily-assimilated nitrogen compounds for plant use, thereby eliminating or reducing fertilizer usage during large-scale production. I have successfully isolated several nitrogen-fixing bacteria from the rhizosomes and rhizosphere of M. giganteus grown in plots south of the UIUC campus, and shown that they can positively affect the health and growth of rice grown in a nitrogen-free medium. Future work will focus on quantifying the amount of fixed nitrogen produced by the isolates, as well as determining contribution of these nitrogen-fixers to plants in the field.
But the newest and really cool bit this summer was the combination of travel and field work.
Miscanthus originated from Southeast Asia, so my advisor, Angela Kent, and I traveled to Taiwan to collect samples of M. sinensis and M. floridulus in order to study how the microbial community changes along an environmental gradient. After three weeks, we had collected and processed 240 plant samples that gave us gradients in soil quality, altitude, species and latitude. Each plant sample produced a rhizosphere (root-associated soil) and rhizome microbial community, and soil from the area was collected for chemical analysis.
I have been working on my independent study projects since my sophomore year, and I will be a senior this year. As the research has evolved, I am now using traditional microbiological techniques and microbial ecology to study the bacteria associated with the biofuel crop Miscanthus giganteus, as well as its parent species, M. sinensis and M. floridulus. This is all part of a broader effort toward understanding and assuring the sustainability of biofuel crops.
I will use both ARISA and T-RFLP, which are culture-independent methods that can examine changes in the diversity of the microbial community in each sample. Seeing Miscanthus growing in only an inch of soil, or next to sulfur vents leads me to believe that there must be robust microbial communities enabling the healthy survival of their hosts, with possible implications for the future industrial production of Miscanthus.