Presenter Information

Conrad KurowskiFollow

Major

Bioinformatics

Anticipated Graduation Year

2020

Access Type

Open Access

Abstract

Astragalus crotalariae grows natively in the western United States and is known for its ability to hyperaccumulate heavy metal selenium in soil. Astragalus lentiginosus is a naturally co-occurring non-hyperaccumulating species. These organisms serve as a strong model to investigate the potential role of bacterial communities in selenium hyperaccumulation in this system. Through a manipulative greenhouse growth experiment and 16S amplicon sequencing and classification, we propose to study changes in bacterial community structure within and between hyperaccumulating and nonhyperaccumulating species of Astragalus following treatment with sodium selenate (Na₂SeO₄).

Community Partners

University of Illinois Microanalysis Laboratory

Faculty Mentors & Instructors

Dr. Michael Grillo, Associate Professor of Biology; Matthew Scott, Masters Student, Department of Biology

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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The Effect of Selenium Hyperaccumulation on the Astragalus Microbiome

Astragalus crotalariae grows natively in the western United States and is known for its ability to hyperaccumulate heavy metal selenium in soil. Astragalus lentiginosus is a naturally co-occurring non-hyperaccumulating species. These organisms serve as a strong model to investigate the potential role of bacterial communities in selenium hyperaccumulation in this system. Through a manipulative greenhouse growth experiment and 16S amplicon sequencing and classification, we propose to study changes in bacterial community structure within and between hyperaccumulating and nonhyperaccumulating species of Astragalus following treatment with sodium selenate (Na₂SeO₄).