MAPS researchers discuss accomplishments at the 2019 MAPS Symposium

Dr. Kristin Bowman-James,
KU Distinguished Professor of Chemistry
 and Kansas EPSCoR Director
giving the MAPS project research overview

    On March 18, 2019 high school students and teachers; undergraduate and graduate students; faculty, and institutional and state leaders participated in the Kansas NSF
EPSCoR RII Track-1 Award OIA-1656006 titled: Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems across Kansas (MAPS) statewide 2019 MAPS Symposium. There were over eighty participants in attendance. Opening remarks were given by Dr. Peter Dorhout, Vice President for Research and Professor of Chemistry at Kansas State University (KSU), followed by a keynote address by Dr. M. Ed Galindo, faculty member at the University of Idaho, Associate Director for Education and Diversity for the NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium, and member of the MAPS Science and Education Advisory Council (SEAC).  Dr. Kristin Bowman-James, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kansas (KU) and Director Kansas NSF EPSCoR provided an overview of the project and Dr. Eric Welch, Professor of Public Affairs and Directors of the C-STEPS at Arizona State University provided a brief summary evaluating the program so far. To complete the morning session, each of the four research areas: Aquatic, Plant and Soils Systems as well as the Research Synthesis group, co-principal investigators or research team leaders discussed the accomplishments, challenges and future plans of the project.

2019 MAPS Symposium Participants

     Over lunch, Dr. Teresa MacDonald, Associate Director of Public Programs for the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum at KU, introduced her and Dr. Ben Sikes', Assistant Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Assistant Scientist, Kansas Biological Survey (KBS) at KU, "Microbes on the Move" traveling museum project that began its tour on March 15, 2019 in Chanute, Kansas. The afternoon session consisted of updates from the Maps Education, Outreach and Diversity initiatives. Dr. Peggy Schultz provided information related to the Ecology for Elementary Students program and the Ecosystems of Kansas Summer Institute .  Dr Cody Marshall, faculty at Haskell Indian Nations University and Dr. Jay Johnson, Professor and Associate Chair of Geography & Atmospheric Science and Director of C-FIRST, gave a brief history of Haskell Indian Nations University and an overview of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Program (HERS). Jill Haukos, Director of Education presented the Konza Environmental Education Program (KEEP) and Dr. Brenee King provided an overview of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Program (LSAMP). For the remainder of the afternoon, twenty-three MAPS individual research projects were presented at the MAPS Poster Session. 

MAPS Poster Session

The following is a list of the MAPS poster project titles and authors who presented:

• "Linking the presence and function of denitrification genes to whole river estimates of denitrification in response to a large-scale nitrogen enrichment of the Kansas River (USA)" Amy Burgin
• "Fire severity effects on ectomycorrhizal colonization of Pinus palustris and Pinus taeda"  Hannah I Dea, Jacob R. Hopkins, Ben A Sikes 
• "Analysis of the Plant-Soil Microbiome Surrounding Native and Non-Native Grasses Across a Precipitation Gradient in Kansas"Mitch Greer and Scout Harrison
• "Head Above Water: Sea Level Rise and Gentrification in Brooklyn and Queens, NY." Trevor Guinn
• "HABs Rehab: Toward Predicting & Preventing Harmful Algal Blooms in Cheney Reservoir" Carlos Cross, Amy Hammett, Daniel Hammett, Jacob Hanna, Issac Stanton
• "Do novel inputs into the Kansas River affect the water or sediment microbiome and water chemistry?" Janaye Hanschu, Lydia Zeglin, Amy Burgin, Michelle Kelly, Emma Overstreet, Cay Thompson
• "Ecotypic Adaptation of Ascomycetes to Drought" Kyle J. Ismert, Dr. Andrea Porras-Alfaro , Dr. Jennifer Rudgers, Dr. Ari Jumpponen 
• "Smart Adaptation of Enriched Microbiomes in Recovered Nutrient Products (biofertilizers) from anaerobic wastewater treatment to the native soil" Arvind Damodara Kannan, Dr. Prathap Parameswaran
• "Migration Medicine: How Shifting Woodlands Affect Navajo Health" Sasha Keams
• "Phosphate and pH data from Fort Hays, Konza, and Eastern Kansas EPSCoR research sites." Stephan Koenigsberger, Mathew Kirk, Dylan Beaudette
• "Probabilistic Modeling of E. Coli SOS Response System Using High-throughput Biological Data" Stephen Kotiang, Ali Eslami
• "3D Freeze Printing of Aerogels" Halil Tetik, Dr. Dong Lin
• "Minirhizotrons: Existing Technologies & Motivation for Developing an Automated Minirhizotron Camera System" Colby J. Moorberg, Yuqi Song, José Guilherme Cesário Pereira Pinto
• 'Impact of Land Use on Soil and Groundwater Microbial Communities in Great Bend Prairie Aquifer" Christina Richardson, Allie Richard, Janaye Hanschu, Lydia Zeglin, Matthew Kirk
• "Terrestrial-aquatic connections, and what they tell us about drivers of microbial, isotopic, and metabolic activity across a Kansas aridity gradient." Anne Schechner, Bre Waterman, Matt Kirk,  Walter Dodds
• "The Effects of Climate and Land Use on Methanotrophic Communities" Carrie Spanton, Terry Loeke
• "FGC: Fragmentary gene caller for gene prediction in metagenomic sequencing data" Sirisha Thippabhotla, Ben Liu, Cuncong Zhong
• "Fire Sovereignty: Using Prescribed Burns to Conserve Tallgrass Prairies on Tribal Lands" Kynzer Wanithunga
• "Methane oxidation in native prairie soil" Irosha Wanithunga, Charles W. Rice 
• "3D printing of Biocompatible Materials (Hydroxyapatite& NanoCellulose Hydrogel)" Guang Yang, Dong Lin
• "Soil Microbial Community Composition Across a Precipitation Gradient with Different Land Uses" Carlos A. B. Pires, Marcos V. M. Sarto (KSU), and Charles W. Rice (KSU)
• "GRARNA: Guided Reference Assembly of ncRNA for Metagenomic Sequencing Data" Ben Liu, Sirisha Thippabhotla, Cuncong Zhong

Funding for the 2019 MAPS Symposium is provided by the Kansas NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 Award OIA-1656006 titled: Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems across Kansas. The grant's workforce development and educational objectives are designed to enhance STEM education in Kansas by supporting activities that will lead to an expanded STEM workforce or prepare a new generation for STEM careers in the areas of aquatic, plant and soil microbiome environments and ecological systems.

LSAMP student presents MAPS research at the Emerging Researchers National Conference in Washington DC

Emireth Monarrez

     Emireth Monarrez didn’t give much thought to doing scientific research when she was in high school even though science came easy to her and she knew "I always I wanted to major in science."  She didn't think student research was even a possibility until her cousin, Areli Monarrez-Valles, mentioned her involvment with the Kansas State University (KSU) Developing Scholars Program (DPS). Hearing about her cousin's DPS research experience sparked her desire to find similar college research opportunities. So, during her freshman year at Seward County Community College (SCCC), Emireth looked for and found the Kansas Bridges to the Future Program (Bridges SSSC). The Kansas Bridges SSSC program is funded by the National Institutes of Health and encourages underrepresented minority students in the biomedical sciences to begin their studies at community colleges and then transfer to KSU to complete a bachelor’s degree. Through the Bridges program, Emireth worked with SCCC Biology Instructor, Myron Perry, on a research project that focused on methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus and multi-drug resistant bacteria. This research project led to an opportunity to have her research presented at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Arizona. Emireth said working on this research project with Mr. Perry “sparked an even bigger interest to continue doing research in different fields outside the biomedical sciences.”
    It was through the Bridges SCCC Program that Emireth discovered the KSU Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Research Immersion: Pathway to STEM (RiPS) Program. The RiPS program is an 8-week summer research experience at KSU in which students conduct independent research with a faculty mentor. Seeing this RiPS program as an opportunity to explore other areas of science, Emireth chose to pursue a research project in plant microbiology and was paired with Dr. Tom Platt, Assistant Professor of Biology at KSU and plant systems research team member for the Kansas NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 Award OIA-1656006 titled: Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems across Kansas (MAPS).
     Emireth's MAPS research project is titled Characterizing the diversity of agrobacteria on the roots of common sunflowers, Helianthus annuus, at Konza Prairie and she explains her project as follows: “The purpose of my research was to identify and characterize the diversity in the agrobacteria population across plants. I was trying to create a phylogenetic tree that would show if the agrobacteria was largely clonal or diverse. As far as methodology, the first thing I did was collect Helianthus annuus from the Konza Prairie and afterwards sample for agrobacterial isolates. After obtaining agrobacterial isolates I used a semi-selective media to identify that I was indeed working with agrobacteria. After the semi-selective test, I performed a biochemical test, 3-ketolactose test, which would further validate that the isolates were agrobacteria. Then, I streaked purified 360 agrobacteria isolates across 20 common sunflower plants into pure culture and preserved them for future genetic characterization. Lastly, I ran a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to obtain the DNA sequence of the recA region from the isolates. Unfortunately, I was not able to create my own phylogenetic tree due to lack of time, but I plan to continue my work with Dr. Platt in order to eventulally create the phylogenetic tree and determine if the agrobacteria is diverse or clonal.” As a result of her summer research efforts, this past February, Emireth presented her MAPS research at the Emerging Researcher National (ERN)Conference in Washington DC.

Emireth and Dr. Platt with his research lab team

     Emireth said her favorite part of the RiPS experience was learning new scientific techniques “as well as how to better understand a peer-reviewed article.” In addition, she said “I learned how to better communicate with team members and how to be a well rounded scientist in a lab." With regards to the KSU LSAMP RiPS programmatic support, she added "Dr. King had great advice. Her classes…were extremely beneficial and she definitely was setting us up for success." When asked what her favorite part of the ERN Conference was, she said “My favorite part of the experience, aside from getting to see all the sights since I have never been to Washington D.C., was presenting. I loved being able to explain to people what I did the entire summer, as well as being asked what I planned to do next, etc."

     Emireth is from Liberal, Kansas and is an active member of HALO, Bridges, TRiO, and Phi-Theta-Kappa (PTK) at SCCC. She also volunteers at the local hospital. After she earns her associate's degree, Emireth plans to transfer to KSU in the fall of 2019. She also plans “to continue to work with Dr. Platt on my summer RiPS project since I did not get to finish it....” At KSU, Emireth plans to either major in Biology or Microbiology.
Workforce Development, Education and Outreach funding for KSU LSAMP RiPS program is provided by the Kansas NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 Award OIA-1656006 titled: Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems across Kansas. The grant's workforce development and educational objectives are designed to enhance STEM education in Kansas by supporting activities that will lead to an expanded STEM workforce or prepare a new generation for STEM careers in the areas of aquatic, plant and soil microbiome environments and ecological systems.

Former Secondary Science Teacher studies Geomicrobiology and Microbial Ecology with MAPS Researchers

    When Christina Richardson graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, she also graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Secondary Education and obtained an Illinois teaching certification. Following graduation, she began her career as a substitute teacher in Illinois, and then later, she became a teacher aid in Indiana. Although, Christina is originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, she grew up in New Delhi, India, so it was not unusual that in June of 2012, she accepted a position in New Delhi serving as an Education Consultant for the Metro Delhi International School.

Christina presenting her research at the
2018 Geological Society of America (GSA)
meeting in Indianapolis, IN

     As an Education Consultant, Christina created “the middle school science curriculum and the high school biology curriculum,” as well as developed the science safety guidelines and the school's annual Science Fair. In addition, she taught 6th through 8th grade science and high school biology. After working four years as an Education Consultant, Christina decided she wanted to go back to school to earn a master's degree because, as she explains, “ ... I realized that I missed studying science for myself.” She added that her interest in studying “Geomicrobiology and Microbial Ecology grew through my students’ curiosity in high school biology and my desire to learn about and promote more sustainable agricultural and water management practices around the world.” So, she moved back to the U.S. to pursue a Master of Science in Geology at Kansas State University (KSU).
    Now in her second year, Christina is working on her master's project with Dr. Matthew Kirk, Associate Professor in the Geology Department at KSU and a team leader of the Soil Systems research team, and Dr. Lydia Zeglin, Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at KSU and a team leader for the Aquatic Systems research team, both involved with the Kansas NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 Award OIA-1656006 titled: Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems across Kansas (MAPS).  On November 16, 2018, Christina presented a poster featuring her research at the MAPS All Science Meeting held at the Konza Prairie Biological Station. Christina collaborated on the poster project with a fellow graduate student, Alexandria Richard. The title of their poster was “Impact of Land Use on Groundwater Chemistry and Microbial Communities in the Great Bend Prairie Aquifer.” Within their research project, Christina focused on looking closely at “the soil and aquifer microbial communities in the Great Bend Prairie Aquifer to understand how they are impacted by land use” while Alexandria focused on the “impact of land use on groundwater chemistry in the Great Bend Prairie Aquifer.”
   

Left: Surveying for soil sampling sites near monitoring wells in south-central

Kansas, and 

Right: Sampling soils at different depths, using ethanol and gloves

to ensure the soil microbial communities remained intact with minimal

contamination of microbes from other sources.

     Christina explained what their research addressed as follows: “Microbial species engage in redox reactions that significantly affect aquifer geochemistry and water quality. Previous studies have focused on the impact of land use on groundwater quality as well as on soil microbial communities. However, very little research has been conducted to understand the influence of land use on aquifer microbial communities. In this study, we are examining the relationship between land use and aquifer microbiology in the Great Bend Prairie Aquifer, a portion of the High Plains Aquifer in south-central Kansas. We hypothesized that land use significantly impacts the composition of the shallow aquifer microbial community and that the composition of the groundwater microbiome will be related to the composition of the soil microbiome. To test these hypotheses, we are comparing the shallow aquifer microbial communities to groundwater geochemistry and to soil geochemistry and microbiology in areas of different land use. We have analyzed multiple samples of the soil and aquifer microbiomes to compare the composition and diversity of their microbial communities. In addition, we have measured environmental parameters (e.g. pH, particle size, EC, OM, NO3-, NO2-, NH3, Mg, Ca) in the soil and shallow aquifer at each sampling site. We are currently analyzing our collected data with alpha and beta diversity tests through QIIME and RStudio. Because land use changes many environmental factors (e.g. added nutrients through fertilizers, pesticides, and manure; change in soil structure via cattle or machinery compaction), we expect to see significant correlations between the shallow aquifer and soil microbial communities of cropland compared to those of pastoral sites.”
     As for her future plans after graduation, Christina said, “I plan to get some experience in the environmental consulting world while my husband is still in the Army, and I am interested in pursuing more research and higher education in the future. Eventually, I plan to work internationally as an environmental consultant.”

The Kansas NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 Award OIA-1656006 titled: Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems across Kansas workforce development, and educational objectives are designed to enhance research capacity and STEM education in Kansas, expand the STEM workforce and prepare a new generation for STEM careers in the areas of aquatic, plant and soil microbiome environments and ecological systems.