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

The Eastern Ecological Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is soliciting applications from CESU partners for research focused on the bioinformatic analysis of existing and upcoming avian microbiome metatranscriptomic datasets. These datasets have already been generated or are in the process of being generated under ongoing projects conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Ecological Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Native Alaskan communities, and state game and wildlife authorities in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Texas.

Proposed research should focus on genome assembly-based identification of viruses, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic microorganisms, with particular emphasis on wildlife and zoonotic pathogens. Funded work will involve comprehensive analysis of shotgun metatranscriptomic data derived from avian microbiomes, including taxonomic identification across microbial domains, estimation of microbial diversity and abundance across host species, tissues, and geographic regions, and development of reproducible bioinformatic workflows. Awardees will be expected to collaborate on joint peer-reviewed scientific publications and ensure that derived data products are made publicly available through appropriate repositories, such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information or ScienceBase.