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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in Biology
in the
School of Biological Sciences
Jiong Wang
Will defend her thesis
“THE EFFECT OF COPPER OXIDE NANOPARTICLES ON BACTERIAL COMMUNITY ASSEMBLY”
19th, November 2021
11 AM
https://bluejeans.com/878478642/0893
Thesis Advisor:
Dr. Lin Jiang
School of Biological Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
Committee Members:
Dr. William Ratcliff
School of Biological Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Yongsheng Chen
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Abstract: A growing amount of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) has been released into the environment. CuO NPs are known to be toxic to various organisms, but their impacts on the assembly of ecological communities are poorly understood. We examined the role of CuO NPs in influencing the assembly of laboratory bacterial assemblages consisting of three bacterial species. CuO NPs had significant negative effects on the growth rate and carrying capacity of all three species. Alpha diversity was significantly reduced by CuO NPs, regardless of assembly history. CuO NPs enhanced the inhibitive priority effects of early arriving species on later arriving species during community assembly. By so doing, CuO NPs promoted the importance of assembly history in shaping bacterial community structure, resulting in greater beta diversity between communities subjected to different histories. Moreover, communities in the copper ion treatment tended to have similar alpha and beta diversity as those in the controls, suggesting that copper ions may not be responsible for the effect of CuO NPs on community assembly. Our results indicate that CuO NPs could modify bacterial community structure by changing the importance of community assembly history and thus the strength of priority effects.
