Microscopic Marvels: Dr. Thomas Powers

University of Florida - Department of Agricultural Education and Communication student Elizabeth Lamm sits down with Dr. Thomas Powers from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln to explore the fascinating, hidden world of nematodes in Nebraska's Sandhills. Through this conversation, you will discover how these microscopic organisms influence soil health, biodiversity, and the future of land management in one of America's most fragile and unique ecosystems. Produced and edited using Adobe Audition, this episode dives into Dr. Powers’ pioneering research and explains why understanding the smallest life forms is critical to protecting the most significant landscapes. Join us as we explore how life below the surface influences the land above, and why the Nebraska Sandhills are significant.

Transcript

00:00:08 Elizabeth Lamm

Hi everyone, welcome to our streaming science microscopic Marvel series, where tiny organisms are a big deal. Streaming science is a student driven science outreach platform that introduces listeners to real world scientists and professionals in the agriculture and natural resources fields.

00:00:23 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Fields.

00:00:24 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

I'm your host Elizabeth Lamb, a student majoring in agricultural education and communications with an emphasis and leadership and communications at the University of Florida. We are talking to scientists, researchers, students and storytellers about nematodes. They are nearly invisible, microscopic worms that can tell us about our environment.

00:00:43 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

In this episode, you will hear from Doctor Thomas powers of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln. Not only is he a professor of plant pathology, but also a researcher of nematology.

00:00:53 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Powers researches nematodes with the team in the Nebraska Sandhills as part of the National Science Foundation's pursuant program. We discussed the diversity of nematodes in the sand hills, how researchers collect and study them, and why these tiny creatures might have big implications for agriculture, conservation, and climate science. Let's learn more about our guests in the microscopic marvels.

00:01:13 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Around this.

00:01:20 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Can you share a bit about your background and how you became interested in studying nematodes?

00:01:25 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Well, first, thanks for inviting me. And 2nd how I became interested in nematodes. Actually I was an entomology undergraduate at Purdue University and from.

00:01:37 Speaker: Thomas Powers

One day we had a.

00:01:41 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of a lab session where we dissected a best beetle and when you dissected the best beetle, one of the first things that was pointed out to me was a nematode that was pair kind of kind of parasitizing, or at least inhabiting the internal gut. And it turned out that it had all these interesting hooks and spines.

00:02:01 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And I don't know. I just became intrigued by the the idea of, you know, little things living in other little things. And so eventually the actually the entomology professor when I graduated allowed me to work in her lab for about 6 months and.

00:02:17 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of. We pursued early scanning electron microscopy of nematodes, so so that was back in the 70s and from there I went to to University of Florida because it had more nematology classes than any other university in the states.

00:02:30

Yeah.

00:02:31 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Go Gators. Now, what drew you specifically to research nematodes in the Nebraska Sand Hills?

00:02:37 Speaker: Thomas Powers

OK, skip ahead for about 30 years and get to the sand hills in Nebraska, and there's a little story connected with that as well. I kind of grew up in the city and Washington, DC and.

00:02:51 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Only time I ever saw the horizon was when I would go to the ocean, you know, and go to Ocean City. And you, you know, you just and and that was always associated with vacation and something, you know, wonderful. Nebraska Sandhills is, is sort of similar in the sense that once you get out.

00:02:55 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Wow.

00:03:10 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Into the sand hills.

00:03:12 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The horizon just goes on forever, you know? So when 1 Hill after another, you don't have much orientation in terms of any structures. There's nothing as a matter of fact you, you know, you could. You could be 200 years in the past and I'm I'm sure that the same view was held by, you know, some of the first people moving through that area.

00:03:33 Speaker: Thomas Powers

So I was intrigued by just just just the the feeling of the sand hills and then at some point I was invited to participate in a kind of a climate change project where they were trying to determine how much disturbance.

00:03:53 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The Sand Hills would take before the the the dune system itself collapses.

00:03:59 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And.

00:04:00 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Was brought along to take a look at the nematode community and see at what point the nematode community sort of sort of evaporates and and and, you know, does it all suddenly just collapse and they all the images disappear? Or do they sort of go 1 by 1? And so that was the kind of the entry to the sand hills.

00:04:20 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Now what makes Sand Hills so unique or significant of a location for studying the nematodes?

00:04:21

This.

00:04:29 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Well, I think it's the number one. It's the largest dune system and grass and intact grassland in, you know this this hemisphere anyway. So number one it's it's.

00:04:43 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know, there's very little evidence and and and not much disturbance in that area. So that's one reason it's interesting.

00:04:51 Speaker: Thomas Powers

#2 the Sandhills have.

00:04:56 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of that and and it's not just all sand and native grasses.

00:05:01 Speaker: Thomas Powers

There are lakes. There are actually 1000 more, probably around 1000 lakes that many of them are. So in the western part of the state where.

00:05:11 Speaker: Thomas Powers

It's these, these, it's it's obviously it's very dry out there, but these lakes are all very shallow discontinuous lakes fed by the groundwater. You know, the whole sand hills are sitting over top of the Ogallala Aquifer and that's that. You know, major, major source of water for the, you know, whole Great Plains region.

00:05:31 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Wow. So do you do most of your research in the lakes or in the dunes?

00:05:37 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Well.

00:05:39 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Mix.

00:05:40 Speaker: Thomas Powers

We have, we have done a lot of a lot of research in, in the dunes themselves currently together with the rotors and Scott at the University of Florida, we've got a a study of the aquatic systems there. And so it's an NSF grant to to sort of look at existence in these lakes.

00:06:00 Speaker: Thomas Powers

These so-called sand hills lakes the the in specifically these highly alkaline lakes that have a very unique water chemistry.

00:06:11 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Then we're going to be looking at the streams, rivers and tributaries and and sort of focus as that as the streams flow eastward, how the Nemoto community changes. And then we're looking at the wetlands and the so-called sand hill fence. And those are very interesting habitats.

00:06:31 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

What species are you guys mostly researching, or are you looking for a variety?

00:06:37 Speaker: Thomas Powers

We're we're we're looking at everything that classifies as a.

00:06:41 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Our focus currently is drawn to these high potassium alkaline lakes where the pH goes up to like 10.

00:06:50 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Not much life in those lakes except nematodes. OK. And so there's one group of nematodes in particular. It's called tobring lids that you find them in. In some of these extreme salty conditions, mainly on on coastal areas. But for some reason we're we're we're quite interested in.

00:07:12 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Number one, how they've managed to adapt to these lakes. We've studied the first five lakes studied. We found four species, so it seemed like every lake had a different species.

00:07:20 Speaker: Thomas Powers

This and since there are 1000 lakes, we don't know whether we look at it. You know, we're looking at 1000 nematodes.

00:07:27 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Now, could you walk us through the process of how you collect, identify and study nematodes and when conducting your research?

00:07:36 Speaker: Thomas Powers

That the initial parts are sort of similar whether you're sampling in water or sampling in the you know the soil.

00:07:42 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Basically want to collect the soil because because nematodes #1 they're they're all aquatic organisms and I should probably point that out right from the beginning. I mean, they need to be surrounded by a kind of a film of water so that they can respire. Now it can be just a really, you know, very dry.

00:08:02 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Soil, but they they do have ways of sort of surviving, even in some of the driest soils when they kind of go into a.

00:08:10 Speaker: Thomas Powers

State of sort of suspended animation, but number one collect soil or the sediment underneath the lakes #2. Extract the nematodes and and that's a a process that doesn't require much more than a filter and filter paper or we we actually use a centrifugation.

00:08:31 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Density gradient centrifugation method that that sort of.

00:08:35 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of cleans up the nematodes and sort of organizes them.

00:08:38 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know, you know, you know.

00:08:40 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Band in a.

00:08:41 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Centrifuge tube so it's easier to to kind of pull them all out.

00:08:45 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Now. So that's isolating the nematodes then in our lab tour we we generally if if we're trying to do a kind of a high resolution analysis we will put them under a microscope individually I'll.

00:08:59 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Photograph them. Then I will, you know, and. And this is just generally general microscopy. I mean you pick out the nematodes out of a little dish of water, put it on a drop of of water on a glass slide, put a cover slip over top of it and then then you can watch it.

00:09:18 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know, watch it move for a while. You if you want to slow it down, you can put it over a flame. We call that relaxing it to the point where it's so relaxed that it doesn't move again.

00:09:31 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And then we photograph it. And now at that point, what we've been doing for the last 20 years really is is breaking open the slides, you know, frying up the glass slide.

00:09:45 Speaker: Thomas Powers

We'll pick out that nematode and then we'll put it into a.

00:09:49 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Microfuge tube and and then we'll conduct PCR.

00:09:52 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Do that and PCR allows us to get at the genetics of the nematode and actually it gives us a much firmer understanding of not only the identity of that, but but how similar it is to the other nematodes living in different lakes or in different soils. So that's that's basically what our lab.

00:10:12 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Does in terms of nematode examination.

00:10:16 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Well, you make it look so easy and it sounds so easy, even though I know it's so complex.

00:10:22

Uh.

00:10:23 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Yeah. No, it's it's, it's easy.

00:10:27 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Until you get to the point where you know, OK, so picking up a nematode, we we pick up nematodes with with these very, very fine picks. You know, actually insect pins these minutes that are about as just as fine as you can get.

00:10:43 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And then you you attempt and you have to have. This is kind of a Zen sort of process. I mean nematodes are in the water and they're kind of going around and the more deliberate you are you try and get the pic underneath the nematode and bring it to the surface of the water to put it on the glass slide.

00:11:01 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And.

00:11:02 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The less success you have you have to sort of create a little current, get it up to the top, put your pin under, and just believe that you're going to get a nematode. Then you touch it to the glass slide. You know the drop of water on the glass slide and then you see.

00:11:16 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The nematode there.

00:11:18 Speaker: Thomas Powers

So that's that's a lesson in.

00:11:21 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Picking up a nematode 101 there.

00:11:23 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

For sure now what have been some of the most surprising or significant findings from this NSF research you're doing?

00:11:32 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Well, OK, so there are a number of things that are.

00:11:38 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of. I'm not only surprising and kind of amazing in that. OK, like in the sand hills, they they have what they call sand hill fence. And so these are our wetlands, but they're, you know, the the Sandhills are are.

00:11:53 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know just.

00:11:55 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Right over top of the aquifer. I mean the aquifer is, you know, in some places you just dig a hole, you know, a foot deep and and it fills up with water. I mean the the the water table is just is that close and it's.

00:12:07 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And water too. So they've got these Fens spotted about the sand hills that that are essentially highly, highly organic.

00:12:19 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Swampy areas? I mean this is different than what you swamps that you see in Florida. OK. And and because the water is so cold, the decomposition is really, really slow.

00:12:30 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And over time, you know that the the kind of the layer of organic matter builds up and so you can go down and take a core at a certain depth and you're coring the population of organisms that were there 1000 or 5000 or even 10,000 years ago. If your core goes deep.

00:12:49 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Of that organic matter and all the stuff in there.

00:12:54 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The unique thing is in the sand hill fence is that the tannins or whatever it is that infiltrates the organisms and the nematodes does a pretty good job of preserving.

00:13:06 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The nematodes so you can have it pull this core out from a spot that might be, I don't know, you know 1000 years old you say and you can see the nematodes as if they were you know just in your sample. I mean they're dead and they're they're preserved, but you know it's it's so.

00:13:25 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You kind of got a.

00:13:26 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Window into the past that way. So that's a fun thing. That's that's that's that's I guess you. One of the main things.

00:13:33 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Another thing about the sand hills and actually some of the earliest work it did in the sand hills was was having to do with the you know the.

00:13:39 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Sand hills are.

00:13:42 Speaker: Thomas Powers

I mean this is this is a grassland over, you know, sand that's might be dunes that are 102 hundred feet high, you know, I mean, now they're all grasslands and and there's a lot of grazing animals that are out there and and if you put too many cattle out there, you, you get these so-called blowouts, you know, because so if they don't take.

00:14:03 Speaker: Thomas Powers

A lot of traffic, but I've had a call. I had a colleague that that was kind of studying how much damage or perturbation or disturbance it would take before the system would would kind of collapse.

00:14:20 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And.

00:14:21 Speaker: Thomas Powers

What was really surprising in that was there are a lot of nematodes that are pretty darn Hardy.

00:14:28 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know and and and you know you what? What you do is you you find the ones that that or or you start to notice a trend where those nematodes that can can go into this sort of anhydro biotic state are the ones that that persist.

00:14:43 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And so. So I think that there's a lot of nematodes that are highly adapted to the sand hills and and that's kind of you know, if you're interested in that adaptation, it's sort of a a neat process.

00:14:56 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

You mentioned trends. Have you observed any additional trends in nematode populations over time, such as responses to climate change or land use?

00:15:05 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Yeah, well, well.

00:15:07 Speaker: Thomas Powers

OK. So so we've had a a little study where we have looked at you know, every so often people who will go and they'll try to plant corn in the sand hills. And actually I think when I was hired.

00:15:23 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Back in 85, they were having a problem because they had a number of wells and they and they were getting great yields on corn. They were breaking out the native vegetation. They're getting great yields, but then those yields would start to crash.

00:15:40 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And there are certain plant parasitic nematodes that that really love corn. And so that was part of part of the problem that that, that that they were.

00:15:49 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Having.

00:15:50 Speaker: Thomas Powers

So.

00:15:53 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Most of those attempts that at at growing, you know, produce out there, you know or potato fields or alfalfa that eventually the people will try to.

00:16:04 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Repopulate, you know, restore the Prairie. So we've got a series of sites where you can actually go and say, hey, this was a soybean field, you know, for 10 years back in the 70s and now it's it's a what looks like a a pretty good grassland. You know, a lot of lot of Big Blue stand, little blue stands.

00:16:25 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Which grass? Indian grass?

00:16:28 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Lead plant all the Forbes anyway.

00:16:32 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The thing that we've discovered is that that you can plant the plants back, but it takes a long time.

00:16:42 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Before you reestablish the the nematode community so you know as a matter of fact it it it, it looks like a cornfield for, you know, the 1st 20 years after, you know, at 20 years after you've attempted to restore the the grasslands. So the communities are the native communities.

00:17:03 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Which are probably, you know, evolved over thousands of years in those areas.

00:17:09 Speaker: Thomas Powers

I suspect they're they're pretty well.

00:17:12 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know, there's a lot of interdependencies on these, these nematodes, and they're they've probably got roles that you know, we're we're unaware of. But when you, you know when you.

00:17:23 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Totally converted to a. You know, a monoculture. Then you know everything just is altered and so it takes a long time to kind of build back those interactions interdependencies.

00:17:40 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Now, are you guys more researching their ability to sustain and survive in such high alkalinity environments? Or is more of it the interdependency and where they're found?

00:17:54 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Well, yeah, those, those are those are kind of LinkedIn in in, in some ways because a lot of these nematode.

00:18:00 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Foods and and Dorota would know this. You know better than I do. But you know, they they. They kind of come with their own little microbiome, just like humans and other organisms have microbiomes in their guts. Nematodes do. I've got a one graduate student that's studying the endo bacterial symbionts inside.

00:18:21 Speaker: Thomas Powers

That that are actually for for that particular species of nematodes absolutely dependent on on the bacteria.

00:18:30 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Producing a, you know, a food, a vitamin, actually, that allows the nematode to exist in that area.

00:18:37 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Remove the bacterium and the nematode dyes so.

00:18:41 Speaker: Thomas Powers

So yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're we're we're kind of looking at these adaptations. But the adaptations aren't are you know necessarily due to how.

00:18:53 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The Nemoto response to the environment, it's also how it's responding to some of the other organisms that are there or the OR it's it's microbiome.

00:19:02 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Little transitioning into practical applications and future research, how could nematodes be used in agriculture or conservation efforts in that region?

00:19:12 Speaker: Thomas Powers

OK, I I-1 good example I can I can provide is that in our analysis in the in, in the sand hills and looking at nematodes and underneath the native vegetation.

00:19:26 Speaker: Thomas Powers

We've discovered, and actually this was discovered by a graduate student back in the the end of the 1990s is that there are two species of these, like entomopathogenic nematodes.

00:19:38 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Now, these entomopathogenic nematodes have this ability where they actually have.

00:19:45 Speaker: Thomas Powers

A host which is usually some sort of root feeding insect. They migrate to that that larvae that might be as plugged into the root.

00:19:57 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And then they they inject that that larvae with their own endoparasitic or not or endosymbiotic. It's not a parasite really it's it's a bacterium that produces toxin inside the insect. It's feeding on the roots and it kills it, you know within 24 or 48 hours it kills that larvae.

00:20:19 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And once inside, the nematode reproduces in that in that sort of gut that well, inside actually inside the goo that's that's inside this dissolving.

00:20:30 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Insect larvae. And then they go back out into the soil and then look, look for another insect host.

00:20:37 Speaker: Thomas Powers

That is a method of biocontrol, and actually this, this particular whole nematode, this entomopathogenic nematode system has been commercialized by some companies. It's widely used in Europe and probably the number one test on corn in the US and maybe in the world. Is this the western corn root?

00:20:58 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Which you know is is a a.

00:21:02 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know, feeds on corn roots.

00:21:06 Speaker: Thomas Powers

If we can kind of better adapt these entomopathogenic nematodes, the native nematodes to to feed on these, you know, we could have a a sort of a biological control system that you know kind of reflects what was going on in nature to begin with. So that's one example of what you can kind.

00:21:25 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Of learn from.

00:21:26 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Studying the the the nematode communities out there.

00:21:30 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

That was such a great demonstration and example, thank.

00:21:32 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

You for that.

00:21:33 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

What are some of the biggest unanswered questions? That or what you feel are?

00:21:38 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

For the most unanswered questions and nematode research that you would hope to maybe explore one day.

00:21:44 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Well, I mean, again survival and adaptation are two, two big questions.

00:21:51 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know there are, there are big ecological questions. I I I'm I'm actually a I mean I'm a taxonomist by training and you know and and a systematist and it's sort of things that I would.

00:22:02 Speaker: Thomas Powers

I was interested in is how did these nematodes get here in the 1st place and why are these nematodes here and not other nematodes and sort of a sort of a?

00:22:12 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know bio biodiversity and just to just just some basic ecological questions.

00:22:23 Speaker: Thomas Powers

There's there's, there's so many. I mean, OK, so nematodes are the most abundant multicellular animal on the planet. OK, that's so that's that's, that's again, you know, beginning nematology there.

00:22:39 Speaker: Thomas Powers

There are so.

00:22:40 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Few of those nematodes, so you know that they they think that there's maybe 5,000,001 to 5 million.

00:22:48 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Nematodes out in on Earth. We've just described about 30,030 to 40,000 of them. I mean not we, but nematologists collectively. So there is a lot of descriptive work that can be done and you just never know when you're going to find nematodes that have some kind of.

00:23:08 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Biology that that is quite useful and provides insight into.

00:23:12 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know human.

00:23:13 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Well, she is no. Redis Elegance was a is a back was is a bacterial nematode. It was the first major multicellular animal that was sequenced, had its whole genome sequence. It's still used in aging studies and and and because there's a lot of genes and a lot of systems that are are in common with humans.

00:23:33 Speaker: Thomas Powers

So it is a major molecular model that is used for getting at basic biology and basic genetics of of animals.

00:23:44 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Wow, that's amazing now.

00:23:47 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Going off of your research that you guys are doing on the private owned branches in Nebraska, how can the public or land managers benefit from understanding more about nematodes?

00:24:03 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know the the the ranchers out in particularly western Nebraska and the Western Sandhills.

00:24:11 Speaker: Thomas Powers

They are actually amazingly.

00:24:15 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Strong.

00:24:16 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Ecologists, to begin with. I mean, in the sense that they really, really know their system, and if there's any component that they don't know about, you know, like, like microbes living in their soil, they're they're actually quite, you know, interested in whatever. Fine. So. So they're they're good, they're they're good partners.

00:24:37 Speaker: Thomas Powers

In in a sense.

00:24:40 Speaker: Thomas Powers

What we can learn, you know, if if we're strictly looking at that, the.

00:24:42

Hey.

00:24:47 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of the the range lands out there, I I.

00:24:52 Speaker: Thomas Powers

They've got a lot vested in in.

00:24:55 Speaker: Thomas Powers

What is a healthy soil and what is a a healthy grassland environment?

00:25:03 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And you know the the sand hills go through these periods of.

00:25:08 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know, and historically they go through these periods of of warming and drought and and when drought is severe, that's when you get these entire mobilization of dunes. It just it just becomes like the, you know, Sahara. I mean, dunes are blowing all over the place. And I think if there were.

00:25:29 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Ways of mitigating their or preventing, you know, some of these events. You know I I think I think that would or anything that would would help maintain the integrity of the grasslands with any information would would would be welcomed by then.

00:25:47 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Now, what is one thing you wish more people understood about nematodes?

00:25:54 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Would probably relate to that bit I was telling you about in terms of the destruction of these communities. You know, I mean, when you dig up a Prairie, you're digging up 1000 years of of formation of the organisms that are in in there. And it takes a long time to reestablish them. Not all nematodes are bad. That's another misconception.

00:26:15 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Out there, you know, you people hear about.

00:26:17 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Out here, soy beans estimator or down in Florida or root knot nematode, you know. And so they think of, you know, used to be that the first response would be just, you know, kind of essentially sterilize the soil.

00:26:32 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And that's now we we know that that's not a good idea and and you know in agricultural situations where you do get nematode loss you you know or or you know loss of your your yield due to the the nematodes.

00:26:47 Speaker: Thomas Powers

There are ways of manage it that, that, that.

00:26:49 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know you.

00:26:50 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You can preserve the the good nematodes that are out there and and the good ones are those that are, you know, bacterial feeder. Those fungal feeders kind of keep those populations in check.

00:27:02 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know there there are a number of ecosystem services that nematodes perform, even recycling nutrients.

00:27:10 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Well, I'm sure our listeners are going to find this very interesting where and the listeners learn more about your work or get involved in nematode research.

00:27:20 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Actually I I.

00:27:21 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Think now they're they're getting to be a lot more. I don't know about podcasts, but there's there's certainly.

00:27:30 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And there's not as many websites as it were, but I think the Society of Nematology does a pretty good job. Actually society and Nematologists is is is a fairly good job of presenting information about.

00:27:44 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Just nematodes in general, I mean, if you're interested in in the entomopathogenic nematodes or epns, the ones do provide biocontrol, I mean there's a bunch of commercial companies that say, hey, buy this product, throw it in your garden watering can, then you can sprinkle nematodes over your garden and kill the white grubs and stuff like that.

00:28:05 Speaker: Thomas Powers

But you know that.

00:28:06 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Will lead you to to more information.

00:28:08 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

When you were at UCF, was there a club you were involved with on campus or did you just have that desired and passion to go learn more about it?

00:28:18 Speaker: Thomas Powers

I just was.

00:28:20 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of inspired by a bunch of professors that I had, and I mean there was no nematology club that that I I recall, but I ended up studying marine nematodes and and and actually taking a a voyage down to the Dry Tour 2. This is for my masters degrees.

00:28:40 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Because I originally they wanted me to work on peanut nematodes and I wasn't. Is interested in peanut nematodes as I was taking a voyage down to the Dry Tortugas.

00:28:50 Speaker: Thomas Powers

And it got to go along and they dredge and pull up this stuff. And. And yeah, I I, I I learned a lot of things on that. I mean, I got my masters degree was eventually on some of these marine nematodes. But you know, I learned number one, I'm violently seasick. As soon as I get out on the ocean.

00:29:10 Speaker: Thomas Powers

#2, though, that that there's sea turtles out there and we saw flying fish and then we went out to the Dry Tortugas and visited the the place. And I I bet you that they still have those those opportunities for students.

00:29:23 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

I will look more into that so we can encourage that for our listeners and.

00:29:27 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

So this brings me to my final and concluding thought and question. Do you have any words of encouragement or ideas, thoughts to encourage others to learn and research more about nematodes and the importance of them?

00:29:42 Speaker: Thomas Powers

We know so little. I mean, you know, all students are going around and they thinking, Oh my gosh, you know, every all this stuff has been done there. There's so much work that that needs to be discovered and put into context. The whole microbiome stuff, that's that's. That's all relatively new. It's kind of popped up, you know, really as a as a.

00:30:01 Speaker: Thomas Powers

The.

00:30:02 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Major area of focus, say within the last 5-10 years or so, nematode genomes are are really fascinating. I mean they, you know, there's a lot of processes that that go in on inside a nematode that.

00:30:14 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Is, you know.

00:30:16 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Kind of unique.

00:30:17 Speaker: Thomas Powers

Nematodes have been around for probably at the time that nematodes got to the.

00:30:24 Speaker: Thomas Powers

By a time life came out on land, there were probably marine nematodes because again.

00:30:31 Speaker: Thomas Powers

If you go down to the deepest depths, there's really rich communities down around the, you know, the the deepest parts of the ocean. So the, you know, it's kind of limitless. I mean, you you can, you know, you can, there are very few places that you can go to that.

00:30:48 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know you can't find them at those people. Study them down in the Antarctic and they're the kind of the at that point they're the main, you know, kind of higher organisms that you find in those dry valleys.

00:30:59 Speaker: Thomas Powers

You know the nematodes kind of rule the the the dry valleys of Antarctic.

00:31:04 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Well, thank you so much for taking the time and talking and speaking with us and sharing your.

00:31:08 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Bridge for tuning in to this episode of Microscopic Marvels. I'm your host, Elizabeth Lamb, and I hope you learned about what makes the Sandhills such a special research site, how climate and land use affect microscopic life, and how nematodes might help shape the future of conservation and agriculture. For more information, or to listen to other episodes in this series, visit streamingscience.com.

00:31:30 Speaker: Elizabeth Lamm

Funding for this series in the nematode research discussed in this episode comes from a National Science Foundation, poorly sampled and unknown tax, a grant awarded to researchers at the University of Nebraska and Florida.