The guiding strategy of the Southeast Climate Science Center (SE CSC) is to provide staffing and institutional support for core SE CSC mission areas. The SE CSC's mission involves supporting researchers and managers to co-produce science connected to management decisions (actionable science), coordinating logistics and communications to bring partners and the community together (within NCSU, with USGS researchers, and across the broader community) to discuss global change impacts to the DOI mission, and training the next generation (graduate students) and current managers on how to use and develop global change science.

Microbes feature prominently in many religious traditions, including the Judeo-Christian traditions. But no holistic work has considered the place of microbiomes in any religious tradition. This award will fund Aminah Al-Attas Bradford to work for two years at NC State finishing up a study of microbiomes in Christianity. This work is at the interface of microbiome studies, Theology, History, Ecology and Public Science and it is anticipated that Aminah will build on connections at NC State across these disciplines in her work. In addition, it will fund Aminah to teach at NC State. The classes she will teach will be decided through further conversations. One likely class would consider (for graduate and undergraduate students) the role of religious institutions in science communication in the United States and more generally. In this course, Aminah would draw upon her own background but would also bring in scholars from throughout the region. A second course might more specifically focus on the view of microbes in Christianity and its historic and modern consequences. These courses would be taught in collaboration with the Department of Applied Ecology and the Public Science Cluster.

For Task Order #3, we provide work plans that will enable us to 1) determine the genes and enzymes from the Bacillus sp. isolates that support growth on polyester and odor production, 2) establish effective methods for inactivation of Bacillus spores on polyester fabric and 3) characterize dye decolorization capabilities for the Bacillus sp. In addition, we propose to support undergraduate students to develop projects that pursue other aspects of this work, particularly to better understand the ecology of microbes on frequently worn fabrics of different types.

The Pan African Programme called "The cultured chimpanzee" is the most ambitious study of wild chimpanzees ever launched. Whereas most studies of wild chimpanzees study a single site and a single chimpanzee population this project considers forty chimpanzee populations, the majority of extant populations. At these sites, the team from the Pan African Programme has study the plants and insects collected by the chimpanzees, their behavior (and behavioral diversity) and their population genetics. While doing that work, the team also collected approximately eight thousand fecal samples. In this project, we propose to identify the species present in those fecal samples in order to better understand the diets of different chimpanzee populations, the microbes associated with the breakdown of those diets, and the identity and composition of parasites to which the chimpanzees have been exposed. To do this, our project will have three key steps. First, an NCSU employee will travel to Leipzig, Germany (where the specimens are housed) to extract the DNA from those samples. Second, the DNA from those samples will be sent to a service center at the University of Colorado (at which the bacteria, parasites, insects, and plant material present as DNA will be identified). Finally, the data that result from work at the University of Colorado will be sent to NCSU where an NCSU employee will analyze those data in light of existing data (from the team in Leipzig) available with regard to each chimpanzee population. For example, we might consider the ways in which field observations of diet match the diet identified genetically from the fecal samples and, in turn, whether the diet of a chimpanzee or chimpanzee population predicts the composition of gut microbes. Do, for example, chimpanzees with more algae in their diet have more microbes in their gut associated with the breakdown of algae?

In our previous work, we have shown the the fungi present in dust can help to identify the geographic origin of dust. Knowing the origin of dust has many potential uses in forensics. In this project, we will expand upon our work with fungi to now also consider the extent to which the insect DNA present in dust can be used (like that of fungi) to identify the geographic origin of samples. We will also consider whether insect DNA provides information not available when considering fungal DNA on its own.

This book will have a very simple structure. It will have an introductory chapter and a concluding chapter and then, in between, ten chapters about each of ten key rules of life. These rules (which are listed below) include rules associated with where species are more diverse, where discoveries are more likely, the inevitable arms race between we humans and the species trying to eat us, and one rule that comes not from the general ecological literature but instead from history, namely that at each moment in history, humans understand the world far less well than they think. While ecologists and biogeographers continue to debate the causes of these rules (it keeps us well occupied), there is broad consensus as to their existence. The book will be short (70,000 words) with the hope that it serves as a quick read that starts to get people thinking about the life around them in a new way. Each chapter will have three things: a) a central human character around which the story is built, b) a biological story that shows some aspect of the sublimity, power or complexity of nature, and c) simple lessons that relate to decisions that individuals can make in their daily lives and societies can make collectively through policy change.

Many thousands of plant and animal species are culturally important to the Indigenous peoples of North America. Global change is leading to major shifts in the abundance, distribution and life history of these species, with concomitant effects on their value to the peoples for whom they are most culturally important. While a number of studies have begun to explore the futures of culturally important species, these studies typically do so in isolation (focusing on individual plant species and single scenarios) and typically do so with little engagement with the people for whom such species are most important. Here we seek to take two initial steps in what we view as a long-term endeavor. First, we use a novel approach to model the current regions to which the future climates of each tribal land in North America will be most analogous in the future. The product of this step will be an online interface as well as physical map, both of which allow stakeholders to begin conversations with a common starting point and at least one tangible, common frame of refence. Second, in light of this model and its products we will convene a listening session at the United South and Eastern Tribes meeting at which we will solicit feedback on the best way forward in terms of studying and managing species on tribal land, in light of global change. We will frame the listening session with four key questions, which species and phenomena should be studied, at what spatial and temporal scale should they be studied, what management decisions are most relevant in light of such studies. Based on our listening session, and in light of our model, we will present our results to the Public Science cluster at North Carolina State University and, in doing so, solicit involvement from the experts best able to help carry out key next steps in this work, using tools from ecology and climate science, but also the best approaches from citizen and, more generally, public science.

Global manufacturers of yeast, food flavorants, and bakery products are searching for ways to differentiate their products from competitors while simultaneously facing consumer pressure to rely solely on ���������������natural flavors.������������������ Yeast species and strains that both leaven bread and produce favorable aromatics are a preferred source of these flavors and traits. Currently, the market is limited by what yeasts species and strains (subspecies) are used as sources of these flavors and baking traits. This limitation is a result of the rarity in nature of yeasts with such useful metabolisms and the inability to predict where to find these yeasts in the environment. My lab has built an isolation pipeline that uses insights from ecology and evolution to reliably cultivate new yeasts of use to the food and beverage markets. In the past we have used a version of this pipeline to identify new yeasts with brewing-relevant metabolisms. The yeasts we identified out-performed industry standards because of their novel metabolic pathways and resulted in patent-pending and currently commercialized technology. We have now modified this pipeline to target yeasts of use to the bakery and flavorant industries, markets with similar needs to the brewing market. Unlike available technologies, this pipeline relies on insects (in vivo selection) to sample yeasts from the environment that are producing fruity and floral aromas, then uses genetic and metabolic assays of the isolated yeasts (in vitro selection) to optimize which yeasts are chosen for industry applications. Using our pipeline we isolated 85 new yeasts (both conventional and non-conventional species) from insects. We will compare the performance of these yeast strains with industry standards. We will investigate those traits that are necessary for yeasts to be of use to the bakery and flavorant markets, including osmotolerance, dough leavening ability, organic acid production, and volatile aroma production. This research will generate new technology in the form of metabolically superior yeasts that can be licensed to various industries (e.g. yeast manufacturing, food flavorants, and bakery products), and it will produce the comparative data needed for further commercialization of these yeasts.

The major challenges of the coming decades are scientific. They require a citizenry educated in science and math, particularly as they relate to the real world. Unfortunately, by nearly any metric the average education of citizens in science and math skills is lagging, whether that be in terms of the knowledge of adults about scientific processes and issues or their precursors, the knowledge and standardized test scores for students in basic environmental science and related mathematical content. Fortunately, there is a strong desire among both teachers and, in many cases students, for more and better STEM education, particularly as it relates to science in practice. Our overall goal is to improve STEM education, in middle schools, by engaging students and teachers in course curricula built around citizen science projects. We will improve education and engagement by having students do real science.

In this proposal we investigate how tree selection at the local scale affects biodiversity and ecosystem services (Obj. 1). We then look regionally to determine the extent to which trees in cities can be used to predict heat-related threats to rural forests (Obj. 2). We will leverage ongoing investigations of how tree diversity could mitigate heat-related stress and pest outbreaks in urban and rural forests to develop management recommendations for both systems. We will also convene a working group to assess how urban environmental changes and tree cover affect human behavior and health (Obj. 3).