Ben's Trip to the Poole Lab
November 2015
By: Ben Perry
The spermosphere is the rhizosphere-like environment of enriched carbon and microbial activity that encompasses a germinating seed. The germinating seed and emerging radicle form the foundation of the spermosphere, and offer the first opportunity for rhizosphere inhabiting microbes to begin the process of colonizing an emerging rhizosphere. While visiting the Poole lab in Oct. 2015 I applied the Rhizobium adapted INSeq method I developed during my M.Sc. to try to elucidate genetic fitness determinants for the colonization of the pea spermosphere. I focused on identifying genes involved in in vitro colonization of 72 to 120hr pea radicles, as well as the colonization of pea spermosphere microcosms at 0 to 48hr germination and 48 to 96hr germination.
The spermosphere is the rhizosphere-like environment of enriched carbon and microbial activity that encompasses a germinating seed. The germinating seed and emerging radicle form the foundation of the spermosphere, and offer the first opportunity for rhizosphere inhabiting microbes to begin the process of colonizing an emerging rhizosphere. While visiting the Poole lab in Oct. 2015 I applied the Rhizobium adapted INSeq method I developed during my M.Sc. to try to elucidate genetic fitness determinants for the colonization of the pea spermosphere. I focused on identifying genes involved in in vitro colonization of 72 to 120hr pea radicles, as well as the colonization of pea spermosphere microcosms at 0 to 48hr germination and 48 to 96hr germination.