With limited time and limited budgets, how can scientists hope to gather samples from many species or from far-flung locations to build a more complete picture of the natural world? Increasingly, researchers are enlisting the help of enthusiastic non-experts to help with these projects. Computational biologists ask gamers to help them discern evolutionary relationships between different types of gut bacteria, entomologists enlist students to identify insect species that carry an important endosymbiont, and microbiologists team up with bakers to catalog the diverse spectrum of microbes that are responsible for the complex flavors of sourdough bread.
Borderlands Gamers Fuel the Next Generation of Citizen Science
To figure out how groups of organisms are related to one another, researchers run comparisons across multiple DNA sequences. While computers are an integral part of this process, the trickier parts still require a human touch. “The truth is that there's no real rule for doing this,” said Jérôme Waldispühl, a computational biologist at McGill University. “Often, it's about looking at the pattern, the context in which a mutation or an insertion or deletion occurs. It’s relying on the aesthetic of the alignment…We needed to figure out how to integrate the human mind into the computing process at scale.” Waldispühl and his collaborators designed an arcade-style game, almost like Tetris, and placed it inside the Borderlands 3 videogame, enabling unprecedented citizen science participation in determining relationships between microbes in the human gut.
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In Search of Microbes That Weave Colors into Moroccan Carpets
Brooke Jude searches for novel pigment-producing microbes and has used naturally purple-pigmented microbes to dye synthetic and cotton fabrics.
Anne Madden, The Microbe Institute
Bacteria can produce a spectrum of colors, from muted tones to dazzling hues. For molecular microbiologist Brooke Jude of Bard College, there was an abundance of purple pigment-producing microbes in the Hudson River Valley watershed around her. The purple pigment, violacein, is known for its antimicrobial properties which help amphibians fight off chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease. To explore their potential and striking coloration, she enlisted citizen scientists to help identify and catalog more of these purple-hued microbes.
Discover more about these vibrant purple microbes in this story.
A Microbial Ally to Bring Science to the Masses
While the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis was discovered more than 100 years ago, there’s still a lot that researchers don’t know about this important insect endosymbiont. Now, an organization called The Wolbachia Project is leveraging this interesting microbe to help students in middle school, high school, and college engage with the scientific process and learn about DNA extraction, amplification, and sequencing as they attempt to identify new arthropod species that carry this microbe.
Keep reading to learn more about this science engagement project.
DNA Metabarcoding Reveals Hidden Biodiversity
The citizen science project Sequencing The Rivers for Environmental Assessment and Monitoring (STREAM), led by Mehrdad Hajibabaei, a molecular biologist at the University of Guelph, enlists community members to help researchers study the health of streams and rivers across Canada. By analyzing sediment samples that have been sent to them, researchers use DNA metabarcoding to identify which species of invertebrates and algae are present. This helps researchers assess how environmental changes, like climate change, pollution, or restoration efforts affect biodiversity and ecosystem health.
Explore the DNA of Canada’s rivers in in this digest article.
Donated sourdough starters helped researchers uncover the factors that influence microbial communities in these living cultures.
Erin Lemieux
Bakers Rise Up to Tackle Sourdough Mysteries
Bread is a staple on many dinner tables, and sourdough’s tangy flavor has captivated bakers for generations. Yet, the mystery of the microbes that give it its distinct taste still puzzles many. This curiosity led Rob Dunn, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at North Carolina State University, to launch the citizen science project The Science of Sourdough in 2016. Over 500 people worldwide donated their sourdough starters, allowing researchers to explore how location affects microbial species, while also examining factors like aroma, flour type, rise time, and height.
Dig into these tasty insights in this article.
Fishermen and Hobbyists Provide Scientists with Invaluable Data
Some small fishing boats on the Pacific Ocean have been keeping detailed records of their catch for years. Now, Stanford marine biologists like William Gilly are taking advantage of this data, combined with climate information, to help figure out the underlying factors contributing to changes in the populations of fish and squid in this region. Gilly was able to link El Niño events, which make deep ocean waters much warmer than usual, with phenotypic changes in the squid, explaining the disappearance of large squid from this region in recent years.
There’s more fish in the sea. Check out this story to keep reading.
