Erratum for Musgrove et al., "Professional Development for Early Career DBER Scholars through In-Person and Virtual Career Panel Workshops".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1128/jmbe.00190-21.].

Professional Development for Early Career DBER Scholars through In-Person and Virtual Career Panel Workshops.

In discipline-based education research (DBER), early career scholars, such as graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, observe a slew of possible career pathways. Yet, there is a lack of opportunities to learn about such pathways, particularly when transitioning from traditional science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) disciplinary training into a DBER position. Thus, the DBER Scholars-in-Training Professional Development subcommittee was created within the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) community to develop a collection of workshops that would serve the greatest professional development needs of early career scholars entering DBER. Through a series of surveys disseminated over multiple years, early career scholars expressed interest in better navigating their career options, which led to the development of the career panel workshop, held during the 2019 and 2020 SABER Annual National Conferences. In this report, we explore the development, implementation, and results of two career panel workshops and compare and contrast the 2019 in-person workshop with the 2020 virtual workshop. We also offer our insights on the value of the career workshop, discuss the next steps, and explore valuable resources for those planning on organizing similar events.

The Bean Beetle Microbiome Project: A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience in Microbiology.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are an effective means of transforming the learning and teaching of science by involving students in the scientific process. The potential importance of the microbiome in shaping both environmental health and disease makes investigations of microbiomes an excellent teaching tool for undergraduate microbiology. Here, we present a CURE based on the microbiome of the bean beetle (Callosobruchus maculatus), a model system for undergraduate laboratory education. Despite the extensive research literature on bean beetles, little is known about their microbiome, making them an ideal system for a discovery-based CURE. In the CURE, students acquire microbiological technical skills by characterizing both culturable and unculturable members of the beetle gut-microbial community. Students plate beetle gut homogenates on different media, describe the colonies that are formed to estimate taxonomic diversity, extract DNA from colonies of interest, PCR amplify the16S rRNA gene for Sanger sequencing, and use the NCBI-nBLAST database to taxonomically classify sequences. Additionally, students extract total DNA from beetle gut homogenates for high-throughput paired-end sequencing and perform bioinformatic and statistical analyses of bacterial communities using a combination of open-access data processing software. Each activity allows students to engage with studies of microbiomes in a real-world context, to apply concepts and laboratory techniques to investigate either student or faculty-driven research questions, and to gain valuable experiences working with large high-throughput datasets. The CURE is designed such that it can be implemented over either 6-weeks (half semester) or 12-weeks (full semester), allowing for flexibility within the curriculum. Furthermore, student-generated data from the CURE (including bacterial colony phenotypic data, full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences from cultured isolates, and bacterial community sequences from gut homogenates) has been compiled in a continuously curated open-access database on the Bean Beetle Microbiome Project website, facilitating the generation of broader research questions across laboratory classrooms.

High spatiotemporal variability of bacterial diversity over short time scales with unique hydrochemical associations within a shallow aquifer.

Understanding microbial community structure and function within the subsurface is critical to assessing overall quality and maintenance of groundwater; however, the factors that determine microbial community assembly, structure, and function in groundwater systems and their impact on water quality remains poorly understood. In this study, three shallow wells (FW301, FW303, FW305) in a non-contaminated shallow aquifer in the ENIGMA-Oak Ridge Field Research Center (Oak Ridge, TN) were sampled approximately 3 times a week over a period of three months to measure changes in groundwater geochemistry and microbial diversity. It was expected that the sampled microbial diversity from two historic field wells (FW301, FW303) would be relatively stable, while diversity from a newer well (FW305) would be less stable over time. The wells displayed some degree of hydrochemical variability over time unique to each well, with FW303 being overall the most stable well and FW301 being the most dynamic based upon dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and nitrate. Community analysis via ss-rRNA paired-end sequencing and distribution-based clustering revealed higher OTU richness, diversity, and variability in groundwater communities of FW301 than the other two wells for diversity binned over all time points. Microbial community composition of a given well was on average > 50% dissimilar to any other well at a given time (days), yet, functional gene diversity as measured with GeoChip remained relatively constant. Similarities in community structure across wells were observed with respect to the presence of 20 shared bacterial groups in all samples in all wells, although at varying levels over the tested time period. Similarity percentage (SIMPER) analysis revealed that variability in FW301 was largely attributed to low abundance, highly-transient populations, while variability in the most hydrochemically stable well (FW303) was due to fluctuations in more highly abundant and frequently present taxa. Additionally, the youngest well FW305 showed a dramatic shift in community composition towards the end of the sampling period that was not observed in the other wells, suggesting possible succession events over time. Time-series analysis using vector auto-regressive models and Granger causality showed unique relationships between richness and geochemistry over time in each well. These results indicate temporally dynamic microbial communities over short time scales, with day-to-day population shifts in local community structure influenced by available source community diversity and local groundwater hydrochemistry.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Inactivation: Decreased Cell Culturability, Adhesiveness to Surfaces, and Biofilm Thickness Upon High-Pressure Nonthermal Plasma Treatment.

Bacterial biofilms are more resilient to standard killing methods than free-living bacteria. Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 biofilms grown on borosilicate coupons were treated with gas-discharge plasma for various exposure times. Almost 100% of the cells were inactivated after a 5-min plasma exposure. Atomic force microscopy was used to image the biofilms and study their micromechanical properties. Results show that the adhesiveness to borosilicate and the thickness of the Pseudomonas biofilms are reduced upon plasma treatment.