Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in understanding interactions between cotton farming and avian microbiome, which will: 1) use shotgun metatranscriptomic and other omics analyses to evaluate the effects of exposure to pesticides and associated dietary changes on all members of gut microbiota from multiple domains (prokaryotes, eukaryotes, viruses) and microbiome function (metabolic pathways, gene ontology terms, antibiotic resistance, virulence) in birds from different trophic levels (primary consumers, insectivores, etc), and 2) conduct field-based comparative studies and sample collection addressing effects of stressor factors associated with cotton production and avian microbiome composition.