The genome of a terrestrial metazoan extremophile

The direct beneficiaries of this research will be government organizations involved in managing active volcanic sites, both in the specific location under investigation, the Furnas caldera on Sao Miguel (Azores), but also with implications for volcanic regions across the globe. The molecular-genetic outputs will provide the basis for developing earthworm-based diagnostic monitoring tools for informing human and environmental risk assessment of active volcanic soils.
Significant technology transfer will benefit the local research community within the Azores, providing them with a completely new genetic ‘tool box’ which may be applied to better understand the local ecosystem, how it was established, and the ongoing interactions between the geochemistry of the volcanic soils and the island’s biota.
The widest community to benefit will be those organizations involved in the management of circum-tropical terrestrial environments. The cosmopolitan distribution of the target organism, the megascoelecid earthworm A. gracilis, in warm climates provides it with the potential to be a sentinel for in situ terrestrial biomonitoring in ways that are analogous to those developed in temperate zones for the lumbricid earthworm Lumbricus rubellus. Since the distribution of invasive A. gracilis encompasses many countries where mining and manufacturing industries are at present poorly regulated, there will be an increasing future requirement for robust ecotoxicological evaluation and management of these contaminated terrestrial habitats.
Other communities will potentially benefit through secondary conduits such as academic medical researchers investigating conditions such as metabolic abnormalities, hypoxia (e.g. ischemia), hypercapnia, and dysfunctions of metal metabolism. Since this research proposal will probe the basic biochemical pathways involved in these processes, and since many of the biological processes involved are evolutionarily conserved, the data generated will be directly transferable to related clinical research fields. Furthermore, the research will provide valuable insight into temperature adaptation and island colonization (specifically to parthenogenesis as an evolutionary strategy) and, in turn, this will inform climate change and colonization/invasion modelling.
The team is passionate about the widest possible engagement for its research, both to the general public and to the wider student (undergraduate and sixth form) fraternity. The team has a significant history of community engagement through articles (‘Heavy Metal-Eating "Superworms”’ Hodson, ME – National Geographic News, Oct 7, 2008), participatory activities (‘Wales Worm Watch’; ‘The Wonderful World of Worms’ – Kille, P. and Morgan, A.J.), and films (‘Sentinel Animals: Soil Pollution’, 2008) in addition to engagement activities such as Science Week, nstitutional Open Days, and School visits. All team members will use the research to inform teaching generally and in undergraduate and MSc projects. These activities are considered routine; therefore, we will not assign specific resources to them in our “pathway to impact” plan.
2. Methods of engagement: What activities will be performed to underpin impact?
To ensure transparency and to facilitate public engagement the team will host a web site using an “interactive wiki” component that will not only allow project objectives and results to be presented but will also allow interactive discussion of key aspects of the work.
The project benefits greatly from its close collaboration with the University of the Azores (UoA) (Department of Biology, and the Centre for Volcanology & Geological Risk Assessment). These academic groups are the primary advisors to their Local Government Agencies relating to the interaction and management of the active volcanic sites and the local ecology and human habitation. Therefore, we are confident that fostering this interaction will deliver local governance benefits. There has been significant prior engagement with the University of the Azores, as evidenced by their supporting letters, and we will continue this close interaction throughout the project. We will consolidate this interaction by organizing small local symposia during the two scheduled field sampling expeditions, together with an “impact meeting” scheduled at the termination of the project to present our research findings.
Technology transfer to the collaborators on the Azores will be achieved by an explicit research exchange allowing Mr Luis Cunha to visit Cardiff and undergo two months research in Years 2 and 3 of the project. The objective will be to provide Mr Cunha with training in the molecular-genetic and informatic approaches being employed within the grant and to transfer this knowledge tohis collegues at the UoA.
Engaging a wider distributed community, such as those involved in environmental monitoring in pantropical regions of the globe, is a complex and challenging task. A component of the research team’s normal activities will be to present the data at international meetings of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), whose mission is to target a global regulatory audience, as well as to forge specific ties to groups such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with a global remit in sustainable environmental development. We will specifically target Asia/Pacific SETAC meetings to ensure that the research reaches an appropriate audience. Furthermore, the PI and CoI are extremely active in the international community, with PK having acted as an advisor to the OECD and is part of an ongoing programme looking at exploiting molecular advances to underpin environment diagnostics. MWB also advises many organizations and governments on conservation issues. However, to maximize the delivery of impact we will engage with Cardiff’s ‘Sustainable Places Research Institute’ (http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/research/sustainableplaces/) to ensure the widest dissemination of the research findings.
To ensure the widest possible impact through secondary academic endeavours, such as medical research and environmental modelling, open access rights will be obtained for all publications streaming from this research. Furthermore, the group will continue its policy (already established in ECOWORM and SEQAWORM projects) of online disclosure through the LumbriBASE portal of genetic data as it is generated.