The aquatic systems of our planet have served as an incubator of evolution since life began on Earth almost four billion years ago. Life first diversified in the sea, and today marine and freshwater ecosystems host a substantial proportion of the biodiversity on the planet.
Symbiosis is a rule of life. Major symbiotic events have occurred in aquatic systems over deep evolutionary time – including the origin of cells with a nucleus, the eukaryotes. Why and how these events happened remain an unsolved puzzle. Gaps in knowledge about the range of symbiotic interactions in aquatic systems and how they evolved are particularly acute but fascinating to address because flowing water and gradients of light, oxygen and nutrients influence – and are influenced by – the evolution and ecology of these relationships.
We cannot fully understand organismal physiology, ecology and evolution without understanding symbiosis. Dedicated research holds potential to spark progress and help create an exciting new field of scientific inquiry.
Our Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems Initiative aims to achieve this goal by advancing understanding of the evolution, ecology and mechanisms of interaction of marine and freshwater symbioses. Deepening knowledge around these important scientific questions requires the development of tools and concepts, and also a need for community building, information sharing, and collaboration.
Building a scientific community
“Symbiosis, and particularly aquatic symbiosis, is important and underfunded. There are a lot of clever, innovative individuals across a range of disciplines who we want to help do their work,” said Jon Kaye, program director for the initiative. “By creating visibility into the research underway, we expect yet additional scientists will take interest and join the symbiosis community.”
Though not a singular scientific field, scientists across a wide range of disciplines study symbiosis. Creating innovative methods and enabling discovery requires bringing researchers together in new ways so they can discuss cross-cutting topics in aquatic symbiosis and share methods and resources. For example, the scientific community benefits when leading technologists and engineers exchange ideas with symbiosis experimentalists.
Bringing these disparate groups closer together requires creating a sense they are part of a common research community, removing barriers to collaboration, and providing avenues to easily recognize milestones in the field.
Enabling collaboration
One way to create visibility and advance collaboration is through the practice of open science, which aims to increase transparency and reproducibility in scientific research. The initiative funds open science approaches, tools and trainings to facilitate engagement among researchers funded by the foundation and beyond. For example, protocols.io, a secure repository for sharing and discussing reproducible methods, ran a series of virtual and in-person trainings to broaden participation on the platform through targeted outreach efforts, demonstrations, and an ambassador program aimed at identifying early-career champions of the platform to attract new users.
Another way to support a broad level of collaboration is through the University of California, San Diego’s Mass Spectrometry Collaboratory that is available to our grantees. Created by Professor Pieter Dorrestein, Ph.D. and directed by Mauricio Caraballo, Ph.D. at the university’s Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences,, the MSCollaboratory provides scientists with access to mass spectrometry, dataanalysis, and training to better understand the molecules used in symbiotic relationships for communication among partners and for interactions with the surrounding aqueous environment.
“Understanding how organisms communicate on a molecular level requires a high level of expertise and access to sophisticated instrumentation, which are not always accessible to most research laboratories,” Dr. Caraballo said.
Through this work the largest marine metabolite data resource in existence will be created, potentially unlocking new insights into aquatic ecosystems and uncovering new marine-based medications. To facilitate sample submission for collaborators with limited access to mass spectrometry instruments, material transfer agreement options are available.
Dr. Caraballo has interacted with more than 30 research groups interested in several aspects of the project, including sample preparation, sample submission, hands-on training, data analysis and experimental design. Additional data analysis workshops are planned for researchers in the global marine community.
“These efforts are aimed at training future generations of data scientists, enhancing understanding of molecular data collection and aquatic organism interactions,” he added.
A community dashboard
In 2023, the Moore Foundation released the Aquatic Symbiosis Community Dashboard, which hosts information on the initiative’s portfolios, grantees and research progress. Serving as an information hub and directory, the dashboard links out to research products and labs funded by the initiative. It allows for more efficient tracking of progress of projects and displays information in an accessible way. The broader research community benefits from access and exposure to publications, methods, and data resources whose creation the foundation supported.
The dashboard serves multiple audiences, increasing visibility of the initiative by serving as a useful tool for grantees and spotlighting their work for the benefit of other scientists. It also facilitates connections among researchers with shared interests who can take advantage of and adopt each other’s methods and concepts.
Learning together
Building community and enabling successful collaboration are key to producing great science. Pursuing interdisciplinary research and synthesis is an essential approach, particularly for aquatic symbiosis.
Creating opportunities for scientists who would not be likely to meet otherwise leads to serendipity. The foundation has hosted numerous virtual gatherings on Zoom that have included hundreds of scientists from around the world who were either able to participate directly or receive access to recordings. These webinars facilitate open discussion about technical challenges researchers face in the lab, enabling presenters to receive real-time feedback from their peers in a supportive environment. Important collaborations also quickly emerge when attendees identify shared research interests, such as sharing tools and resources or providing access to sophisticated laboratory equipment to study a challenging aquatic symbiosis question.
Together, these resources help bring the community together to establish best practices, improve the efficiency of research and facilitate new collaborations and community connectivity to advance knowledge and discovery about aquatic symbiosis.
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