CURE: Biodiversity of Fish and Their Microbiome Extraction From The Ross Barnett Reservoir Spillway
Natalie Hampton, Destiny Grisby, Tre McClinton, Desiree Mills, Scoty Hearst, Jinghe Mao
Biology Department, Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS
The CURE stands for Course Based Undergraduate Research Experience. CUREs as teaching tools are on the rise due to their good track records and enhanced impact on student learning. CUREs are designed to engage students and provide first-hand experience in novel research topics pertaining to course material. During our summer science program, we participated in a biology CURE project with the goal to assess the biodiversity of fish that inhabit the Ross Barnett Reservoir Spillway located in Ridgeland, MS. We asked the question “What type of fish inhabit the Spillway and can we isolate their gut microbiomes”? We speculated that we would find many different types of freshwater fish at the spillway and that we could also extract the microbiomes of these fish using microbial culturing techniques. Interestingly, using a cast-net, we caught 10 different species of fish at the Spillway habitat. We also found that fish numbers are dynamic and reflect the rising or falling water of the Spillway gates. Different populations of fish were found at rising water as compared to falling water. In the lab, we extracted many different bacteria from the gut of various fish species caught from the Spillway. Using variations in shape and color attributes, we were able to distinguish different types of bacteria in the fish microbiome at the basic level. In the future, we plan to sequence the various fish microbiomes as well as the colonial isolates to the family level. In our experience, the CURE approach is an excellent teaching method to engage students and enhance their learning in biodiversity and microbiome analysis to answer unique research questions.