MAES News
November 1, 2007
- Newly Identified Gene May Offer Clues to Infertility in both Cows and Women
- Boone and Crockett Club to Establish Wildlife Conservation Endowed Professorship
- From Field to Fuel: MSU Research Drives Future Planting Decisions
- MSU Aims to Solidify its Bioeconomy Leadership
- MAES Preawards Office Develops Web Site
- Plant Viruses from Past Provide Ecological Clues
- Microbiology No Small Matter in Updated Reference Manual
- New Faculty Members
- Application Deadline is Jan. 7 for 2008 Project GREEEN Proposals
- Researchers Determine Spinach May Have Mucky Michigan Future
A newly identified gene that controls embryo development in cows may someday offer clues into the cause of infertility in women.
A team of researchers from Michigan State University led by George
W. Smith, MAES animal scientist, has discovered that the new egg-specific gene, JY-1, is necessary for embryonic development in dairy cows. The research is reported in the Oct. 29 online issue of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
Besides potentially offering the dairy industry more solutions for the infertility problem that costs it more than $1 billion per year, the new gene provides clues into the egg's role in embryo development and may ultimately provide new options for the more than 9.3 million women treated annually for fertility problems.
According to Smith, cows are a better model for human fertility research than the standard mouse model. Like women, cows usually release a single egg and give birth to one offspring at a time. Mice, in contrast, release multiple eggs and give birth to litters of pups.
"Our research focus is infertility in dairy cows," Smith said. "We want to understand the role of egg quality in infertility and create new solutions for dairy producers to manage their biggest problem. But there could certainly be human implications."
Smith and his team, which includes former graduate student Anilkumar Bettegowda and Jianbo Yao, a former fellow in the MSU Center for Animal Functional Genomics, as well as MAES animal scientists Paul Coussens and Jim Ireland, and visiting researcher Osman Patel, know the bovine chromosome where the JY-1 gene is located. A similar gene is located on the matching chromosome in humans but does not appear to be functional.
"There may be other related genes in humans that perform the same function as JY-1," Smith said. "We know this gene is necessary for cow embryos to develop, so it makes sense that humans have a related gene with a similar function."
Infertility and other reproductive problems are one of the dairy industry's biggest concerns. Pregnancy is a requirement for milk production, so if a cow can't get pregnant or can't maintain a pregnancy, a farmer suffers not only the loss of the milk but the loss of the animal and the cost of replacing her, plus higher veterinary and insemination costs.
"We now know the JY-1 gene is required for embryo development in dairy cows," Smith said. "Our next steps are to determine how the gene is regulated and how different levels of the protein affect fertility. There are still a lot of unknowns, but this is the first piece of the puzzle."
The research was supported by the Rackham Foundation, the MSU Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, the MSU Center for Animal Functional Genomics and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.
Boone and Crockett Club to Establish Wildlife Conservation Endowed Professorship
A century after President Theodore Roosevelt visited Michigan Agricultural College, an exclusive organization that he founded will establish an endowment to cultivate future leaders in wildlife conservation and management.
The Boone and Crockett Club, established in 1887 to conserve North American wildlife and the fair chase ethic, has announced $1.4 million in gifts and pledges and $350,000 in planned gifts to create the Boone and Crockett Club Professorship in Wildlife Conservation at MSU. This represents half of the $3.5 million goal the club has set for the endowment.
According to Bill Demmer, Lansing businessman and Boone and Crockett Club vice president for conservation, the endowed chair will work to create both future leaders for state, tribal, national and global wildlife resource management agencies and a public more informed about wildlife conservation.
"We are delighted to partner with Michigan State University to establish this endowed professorship," Demmer said. "The individual selected will not only be a national and international leader in science-based wildlife management and conservation but will establish exemplary teaching, research and outreach programs that will develop tomorrow's visionaries and leaders."
The Boone and Crockett Club endowed chair will be housed in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and will collaborate with other units across campus; the Michigan Department of Natural Resources; other state, federal, tribal and international resource management agencies; and non-governmental wildlife conservation organizations in Michigan and across North America.
"This professorship will attract the best and brightest young minds to Michigan State University for both undergraduate and graduate study," said William Taylor, chairperson of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. "The work done here will strongly influence state and national wildlife conservation and management policy for decades to come.
"The fact that the Boone and Crockett Club has selected MSU for this endowment is a wonderful tribute which underscores our strong tradition of forging partnerships with organizations with similar missions and values," Taylor continued. "The establishment of the Boone and Crockett Club Professorship in Wildlife Conservation at MSU demonstrates the essential nature of this great land-grant institution, innovatively bringing together citizens, policy-makers and the academic community to develop the public leadership which will serve to enhance the ecological, social and economic well-being of Michigan and North American wildlife resources in the years to come."
From Field to Fuel: MSU Research Drives Future Planting Decisions
Some call it corn, others call it maize, but at MSU, it's what is driving research to fuel the emerging bioeconomy.
Corn has been produced as food for thousands of years, but until recently, exploring its role in producing energy was a new frontier.
"With a growing demand for corn grain to supply the burgeoning ethanol market, the time had come to find an effective way to identify which hybrids would yield the highest amounts of ethanol," said Kurt Thelen, MAES crop and soil sciences researcher. "This type of work had never been done, so a lot of basic questions had to be answered."
Thelen's research will benefit growers seeking higher ethanol-yielding hybrids, the biorefineries set up to process corn into ethanol, and the end users who fill their vehicle or farm machinery tanks with ethanol-based fuel.
"The work we're doing is directly applicable to Michigan growers. It will not only benefit our state economically, but it will ultimately provide us with access to more sustainable and environmentally beneficial energy sources," he said. "As a state, Michigan is committed to becoming the leader in developing alternative energy sources, and research such as this helps to establish our position as a leader."
Thelen and his colleagues compared 286 hybrids under Michigan growing conditions to measure the differences in the amounts of starch-generated ethanol produced. They were surprised to find up to a 22 percent difference among hybrids.
"The variability between hybrids was surprising. We have confidence in our methods because our average ethanol yield matched up with the national average of 2.8 gallons of ethanol per bushel, but we were also surprised by the percentage differences in variability within individual fields and also across the state," he said.
The difference of a few percentage points can make a difference of thousands of dollars in return.
"For a plant producing 50 million gallons of ethanol per year, even a small increase of 4 percent in hybrid ethanol yield results in significant returns," Thelen said. "Fifty million gallons multiplied by 4 percent would result in 2 million additional gallons of ethanol per year, and at $2 per gallon for ethanol, this equals out to $4 million."
Thelen noted that researchers are only beginning to understand how crop genetics and landscape and environmental characteristics contribute to the variability of ethanol yield.
"With the 2006 crop we observed that the farther north we sampled in the state, the higher the ethanol yield. Additionally, we saw swings of 20 percent in the gallons of ethanol produced per bushel of corn depending upon where it was grown in the same 120-acre field," he said. "Ongoing work will focus on identifying how field-level and latitudinal variability contribute to differences in ethanol yield."
The next logical step will be to apply the same types of experiments being used with corn to cellulosic sources of ethanol such as switchgrass and corn stover.
"Branching off into switchgrass and other crops to determine the role they can play in the ethanol industry will help minimize the potential ramifications of the food versus fuel debate," Thelen said. "We believe we can supply both markets."
Funding for this project was provided by Project GREEEN, the U.S. Department of Energy, Chrysler LLC and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, with participatory support provided by the plant industry groups.
MSU Aims to Solidify its Bioeconomy Leadership
In 2007, MSU made great progress in growing Michigan's bioeconomy. This summer, the university received a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help establish the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, and this fall, it opened a $10 million alternative energy research center. In addition, MSU representatives traveled to Sweden with Gov. Granholm to foster collaborations between Michigan and Swedish scientists and businesses on biofuels and bioenergy.
The bioeconomy holds tremendous promise for Michigan's economic and environmental future. When fully developed, Michigan's bioeconomy will harvest significant quantities of biomass from agricultural crops and trees, manufacture it into a range of desirable, high quality products, and expand the necessary services and logistics sectors.
To further cement its leadership role in the state's bioeconomy, MSU, through the Office of Biobased Technologies, will expand its bioeconomy research capacity by hiring several new faculty members.
"In 2007-08, MSU will hire an interdisciplinary cluster of eight faculty members whose focus is research to foster and advance the bioeconomy," said Steve Pueppke, Office of Biobased Technologies director who is also MAES director. "To fill these positions, we're looking for outstanding social scientists, plant biologists, engineers, forestry researchers and other researchers committed to achieving the full potential of the bioeconomy."
The first position posted is for a faculty member with a split appointment between the departments of Economics and Agricultural Economics whose research will focus on the economics of energy.
"We'd like someone with an emphasis on the interface between agriculture, the environment, natural resources, biofuels, alternative renewable energy sources and petroleum-based fuels," Pueppke said. "If alternative fuels are going to compete with fossil fuels, they have to be economically viable to produce and transport."
"A full transformation of an economy requires services, such as transportation and distribution, in addition to the engineering and manufacturing of alternative fuels," said Marietta Baba, dean of the College of Social Science. "Understanding the complex shifts across a society -- including acceptance by the public and necessary changes in infrastructure -- requires significant forethought and planning.
"With the new economics position, we will put a partner in place to work with faculty members who are creating the alternative fuels, someone with expertise about the costs and benefits of alternative fuel production and its ripple effects throughout the economy, including changes that need to be made in the infrastructure and support services," Baba continued. "In addition, the new science and technology policy position is intended to identify policy shifts and tools that would facilitate the broader changes in society that need to happen for the full economic transformation to occur."
More information about the open position and how to apply is available on the faculty search page of the Office of Biobased Technologies Web site.
MAES Preawards Office Develops Web Site
As part of its work to help faculty members identify, prepare and submit large multidisciplinary grant proposals, the MAES Preawards Office has established a Web site.
Visitors can find information about grant-writing workshops, helpful links and services provided by the office.
Bill Humphrey, Preawards Office coordinator, said the site allows faculty members to easily contact him for assistance and believes it will lead to a higher percentage of funded proposals.
"Having worked to establish a preaward office in the College of Human Medicine, I have seen the difference it makes in securing proposal funding," he said. "One of the most exciting aspects of this work is developing new collaborations with folks who don't even know about each other's work and seeing how that translates into stronger, more compelling proposals."
For more information, visit the MAES Preawards Office Web site.
Plant Viruses from Past Provide Ecological Clues
Taking the medical history of a grassland may seem a bit esoteric -- after all, how sick can grass be? However, scientists have discovered plant viruses from as early as 1917 containing information crucial not only for plant scientists but also for those working in ecology, human health and bioterrorism.
Carolyn Malmstrom, MAES plant biology scientist, isolated historical viral RNA sequences in native and invasive grasses revealing a complex picture of struggles of species, interactions with insects and implications for the ways viruses behave today. The findings were reported in the Oct. 16 edition of the Journal of Ecology.
"This work points out that the virus world does have an active, long-term role in nature, not just in agriculture," Malmstrom said. "We very much need to understand how viruses can move and influence our crops. If we care about our crops, we need to care about what's happening in nature."
When living in northern California, Malmstrom noticed that a walk through grasslands dominated by nonnative annual plants meant getting covered in aphids, an infestation that wasn't typically seen in perennial grasses indigenous to the area.
It made her wonder what the differences were -- and what that meant to the overall health of those ecosystems.
Those questions ultimately led to viruses, which can be spread among plants by aphids the way that mosquitoes spread disease among humans. Malmstrom explained that little is known about viruses in nature -- that's usually a discussion reserved for agricultural crops. But recent advances in molecular techniques have unveiled natural systems teeming with viruses and thus raised the question of what the impact of those viruses is.
"We've always assumed viruses largely are manifested in agricultural systems because the system is unbalanced due to human interaction," Malmstrom said. "But now we are understanding that viruses are more common in nature than people realize -- and that there's a whole class of biological interactions going on out there that we know hardly anything about."
The paper deals with historical virus ecology -- understanding how viruses affected grasslands years ago. The team examined dried California grasses in plant collections from the early 1900s. Unprotected, RNA typically degenerates quickly, but Malmstrom's group discovered that the old RNA in these descendents of common grain viruses had been protected by the viruses' exterior proteins and could still be recovered almost a century later.
"These are the oldest plant viruses anyone has gotten out of plant material in North America," Malmstrom said.
The work suggests that these barley and cereal yellow dwarf viruses may have helped invasive grasses take over California in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The history, Malmstrom said, is important in understanding how viruses spread and change. People have been bringing in new species of plants to the New World since Columbus arrived in the 15th century, and these invasions rocked the ecological world. In California, native perennial grasses gave way to new annual grasses, and aphid populations grew larger. Because aphids can carry viruses over long distances, increases in their numbers can alter disease dynamics over a large area. In California, more native grasses likely got sick after Europeans arrived, just as Native Americans did.
"We are able to take modern and historical viruses and put them in a family tree so we can start investigating how far back different virus groups split from each other," Malmstrom said. "Our work suggests that some of the big branching of viruses happened during early global exploration by humans. We want to understand how human influence shapes how viruses evolve."
Understanding what impact humans have on natural systems is especially important as the human world has much of natural ecology reined in. Malmstrom described human influence in terms of a net -- one in which natural systems are increasingly hemmed in by a grid of roads, urban areas and fences.
"At night, the view of North America from outer space reveals a grid of lights that shows how we have built a net over the landscape, one that doesn't let large controlling agents -- be they stampedes of buffalos or fires -- move across the landscape like they used to; they get caught in our net," she said. "But those little aphids can still move through those nets and the viruses with them. The importance of viruses and small pathogens is going to be increasingly dominant as other forces have been controlled."
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and also supported by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.
Microbiology No Small Matter in Updated Reference Manual
A new, state-of-the-art reference manual for microbiologists has just been released, thanks to the efforts of MAES scientists C.A.
Reddy, Tom Schmidt and John
Breznak. The book, Methods
for General and Molecular Microbiology (now in its third iteration), has long served as the first source for traditional microbiology techniques and commonly used modern molecular microbiological methods.
MSU microbiologists have edited and compiled the manual for 26 years.
"MSU has traditionally been strong in microbiology," said Reddy, who served as editor-in-chief for the 1,069-page third edition. "We have three members of the National Academy of Sciences in the department right now: James Tiedje, Richard Lenski and Michael Thomashow. That's quite an honor. And the microbial ecology group here is well-known throughout the world."
Reddy was tapped as editor-in-chief for his expertise in microbiological processes and his experience in editing various publications, Schmidt explained.
Though many other microbiology manuals are available, they largely address more contemporary methods. Many of the books on traditional methods are out of print and difficult to find.
"This book encompasses the new methods and includes the framework of the classical methods that people are still using every day," Schmidt said. "As far as we know, it's the only book of its kind. The biggest challenge was keeping it to one volume so it could be kept in the lab for easy reference."
The editing team, which also included MSU researcher Loren Snyder and scientists from the University of Guelph and Ohio State University, made the new edition more expansive by adding two entirely new sections on fungi and community and genomic analysis and compiling 47 chapters (there were 31 chapters in the previous edition).
Even though the book was overseen and produced by MSU faculty members, its authorship and use are international.
"There are contributors from across the United States and throughout the world, including Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Germany, India, Israel, Scotland and Switzerland," Schmidt said. "It's not a parochial view of the methods, and all the authors are authorities in their respective fields."
The Manual for General and Molecular Microbiology is available from the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), 1752 N. Street NW, Washington, DC 20036; 202-737-3600; www.asm.org, as well as other booksellers. Published in September, the book was funded by ASM.
New Faculty Members
The MAES is pleased to welcome the following four new faculty members with MAES appointments.
Andrew
Finley, assistant professor of forest management and modeling, became affiliated with the MAES in August. His research areas include natural resource inventory, Bayesian and spatial statistics, and statistical computing. His research focuses on spatiotemporal modeling of important economic and ecological forest attributes, indices of biodiversity and ecological systems. A central theme in his research is the use of models to integrate information from various sources to improve inference and predictions.
Finley received a doctorate in natural resources science and management and a master's degree in statistics from the University of Minnesota in 2007, a master's degree in forestry from the University of Massachusetts in 2003, and a bachelor's degree in forestry from Pennsylvania State University in 2000.
Matthew
Grieshop was named assistant professor of entomology in October. His research goals are to develop new pest management tactics and strategies that enhance ecological and economic sustainability within the philosophical framework of organic agricultural practices. More specifically, he's interested in how "weaknesses" in pest life history or behavior can be exploited for pest management as well as the refinement and extension of newly developed pest management in cooperation with organic producers.
Before coming to MSU, Grieshop served as a postdoctoral research assistant at Washington State University since 2005, studying how to improve mating disruption of tree fruit pests. He received his doctorate in entomology from Kansas State University in 2005, his master's degree in entomology from Montana State University in 1999 and his bachelor's degree in environmental studies from the University of California-Santa Cruz in 1995.
Jennifer
Lau, assistant professor of plant biology, became affiliated with the MAES in August. Her research bridges community ecology and evolutionary biology to explore how plants interact with both the biotic and abiotic environments and how the plants respond to multiple selective pressures. She is particularly interested in studying the indirect effects that occur when changes in the biotic or abiotic environment change interactions between plant community members.
Based at the Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners, Lau has been an MSU faculty member since June. She received her doctorate from the University of California-Davis in 2005.
Janet Lewis, assistant professor of crop and soil sciences, became affiliated with the MAES in October. Her research focuses on developing soft red and white winter wheat varieties for Michigan with improved yield, milling and baking qualities, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. She's also working on identifying and understanding resistance to Fusarium head blight, also known as wheat scab, a problem fungal disease for Michigan growers that affects yield and quality. Scab is also a health concern for humans and animals because the fungus produces mycotoxins.
Before coming to MSU, Lewis spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow in a small grains genomics laboratory at the University of Minnesota and 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico. She received her doctorate in crop and soil sciences and plant breeding and genetics from MSU in 2004 and her bachelor's degree in botany from the University of Michigan in 1997.
Application Deadline is Jan. 7 for 2008 Project GREEEN Proposals
Project GREEEN (Generating Research and Extension to meet Economic and Environmental Needs), Michigan's plant agriculture initiative at MSU, has issued its request for proposals (RFP) for fiscal year 2008.
Approximately $1.3 million will be available for funding new research projects in 2008, and up to $2.3 million will be available for funding continuation of multiyear projects started in fiscal years 2006 and 2007.
Proposals will be accepted in three categories: basic research, applied research and Extension/education/demonstration. New this year will be a special one-time $20,000 supplement to support integrated pest management (IPM) Extension activities.
Project GREEEN funding should complement ongoing programs or assist in exploring new ventures, and a proposal should clearly demonstrate how the project will benefit Michigan's plant-based agriculture industry. All proposals will be evaluated by peer review panels composed of researchers, educators and industry professionals.
During 2007, Project GREEEN awarded $1.5 million in grants for 50 new research projects. Another $1 million was directed toward multiyear projects begun in 2005 or 2006. All funded projects addressed critical research and education priorities identified by the state's plant commodity and stakeholder groups.
An RFP application is available online, as is a complete listing of updated plant commodity research and educational priorities.
Applications are due by 5 p.m. Jan. 7, 2008. Awards will be announced in early March, with funds becoming available in April.
Researchers Determine Spinach May Have Mucky Michigan Future
Spinach may be good for you, but MAES researchers have helped determined that it may not be the healthiest crop for some Michigan farmers.
Daryl Warncke, MAES crop and soil sciences researcher, and Jim Breinling, MSU Extension regional vegetable educator, initiated a research project in 2005 aimed at increasing spinach production in Michigan. A local food processor approached Breinling in 2003 with a problem -- increasingly high demands for frozen spinach but not enough Michigan growers producing the crop.
Warncke and Breinling received funding from Project GREEEN to investigate the possibility of growing more spinach in Michigan.
In 2003, fewer than 100 acres of spinach were grown in Michigan. Chase Farms, an Oceana County frozen food processor, estimated a market potential of up to 10 million pounds per year. Filling this demand would mean boosting Michigan spinach production up to 1,000 acres and would put more than $500,000 into growers' pockets annually.
"We collaborated to find growers and answer some important questions about the crop's fertility and viability," Breinling said.
Warncke and Breinling capitalized on their individual expertise -- Warncke conducted soil management studies, and Breinling assisted Oceana County growers who were willing to plant a spinach crop but needed technical expertise to become familiar with the new crop.
Initially, spinach appeared to be ideal for Michigan because it's a short-season crop that would be in the field just 45 to 50 days. In most cases, growers could plant a second crop in the same field for increased profits, Breinling said.
Breinling said six growers agreed to try spinach in their fields. The first growing season went well, but the second year the crop did not thrive. The main problem was water. Mason and Oceana counties' sandy soils were not the right environment for water-needy spinach.
"Economically, growers were not getting the yields and quality they needed," Breinling said.
The project was not over, Breinling said. Now more familiar with spinach's need for a continuous water supply, the research team decided to plant a crop in the muck soils of Newaygo and Washtenaw counties.
"We introduced Chase Farms to two muck farmers in the Grant area and one in southeastern Michigan; they have had much more success," Breinling said. "Combined, the three farmers grew more than 250 acres of spinach this year. It's not thousands of acres, but there is a market and demand for the product, and it works for these individuals and the processor."
Though 1,000 acres of spinach may not be in Michigan's immediate future, Warncke and Breinling agreed that the industry is better off because of the research.
"One crop doesn't make Michigan's agriculture industry," Breinling said. "That is what makes us the No. 2 state in crop diversity -- it is the little pieces that make up the whole picture."
