Innovative Invasive Species Control and Bioremediation via RNAI Treatment | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The grant opportunity "Innovative Invasive Species Control and Bioremediation via RNAI Treatment" is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) cooperative agreement focused on developing a more precise, longer-lasting way to control high-impact invasive plants, starting with Phragmites australis (common reed). The problem the project is trying to solve is that an aggressive European genotype of Phragmites spread across North American wetlands over the last century and now dominates marshes and shorelines from the East Coast through the Great Lakes and out to the Pacific. In many places it forms dense monocultures that push out native plants, reduce overall plant diversity, and degrade habitat used by fish, reptiles, and birds. Traditional management approaches like flooding, burning, and broad-spectrum herbicides can temporarily knock it back, but they tend to be short-lived, can be environmentally disruptive, and often do not produce a durable ecological recovery because the plant reinvades or the treatment also harms native vegetation.

The core idea behind the project is to use RNA interference (RNAi) and related gene-silencing methods to create species-specific suppression of invasive plants, rather than relying on non-specific chemical or physical controls. Wayne State University (WSU) has been building this approach through earlier phase work, and this cooperative agreement is designed to continue and expand that progress. The gene-silencing concept is aimed at reducing key traits that make invaders so competitive, such as photosynthesis efficiency, root and rhizome growth, and seed production. If successful, this would shift competitive advantage back toward native plants and allow gradual restoration of wetlands and other affected ecosystems without the collateral damage associated with blanket herbicide use or repeated burning.

A major foundation of the work to date has been building the genetic resources needed to target Phragmites precisely. During the prior phase, WSU generated and partially annotated a transcriptome library using RNA from multiple Phragmites tissues collected in the field, including rhizomes, shoot meristems, leaves, and inflorescences. The resulting database consists of processed contigs that can be searched using standard tools like BLAST, giving researchers a practical way to identify candidate genes to silence and to design silencing constructs that are specific to the invasive species. In parallel, the team has been developing and testing different silencing vector strategies, including artificial microRNAs (amiR), viral-induced gene silencing (VIGS), and hairpin RNA constructs. They also used surrogate laboratory species such as maize (Zea mays) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus) to help design and evaluate delivery and efficacy, and they have already seen some encouraging growth-reducing effects.

A notable expansion in this opportunity is that the project is not limited to Phragmites. It also addresses the need for invasive plant control methods that work in more complex, mixed-species habitats where non-specific treatments are especially risky. The proposal broadens the scope to invasive lianas in mesic woodlands, specifically Celastrus orbiculatus (oriental bittersweet) and Lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle). These species can alter forest structure and regeneration through mechanisms like allelopathy, girdling, shading and light competition, and physical damage such as uprooting. Because forests contain slow-growing native perennials (including trees) that cannot quickly rebound from disturbance, methods like burning or broad herbicides may create unacceptable ecological tradeoffs. The project frames gene silencing as a potentially selective tool that could suppress targeted invaders while leaving native species largely intact, supporting restoration in both marsh systems dominated by herbaceous monocultures and wooded systems characterized by mosaics of native plants.

The cooperative agreement lays out five specific objectives, two of which are new and intended to accelerate progress and broaden applicability. The first objective is to establish a rapid protoplast-based screening system. Protoplasts are plant cells with the cell wall removed, often used to quickly test gene expression and silencing responses in a controlled way. By building a high-throughput screening pipeline, the team aims to test panels of amiR, VIGS, and hairpin RNA constructs more efficiently and identify the most promising candidates faster than whole-plant testing alone. The second objective is to generate comparable transcriptome resources for Celastrus orbiculatus and Lonicera japonica by isolating, describing, and analyzing transcriptome data for these species. The practical output is a searchable database that allows identification of target genes and supports the design of species-specific silencing constructs, similar to what was created for Phragmites.

The remaining objectives continue and deepen the earlier phase work. Objective three expands laboratory trials to determine which silencing vectors most strongly affect target plant morphology and physiology, essentially ranking candidate constructs by their ability to reduce growth, disrupt key functions, or diminish reproductive capacity. Objective four moves beyond single-species testing into laboratory competition experiments using Phragmites and the surrogate species (maize and sunflower) to demonstrate the idea of species-specific competitive modification. The purpose here is to show that targeted silencing can change competitive outcomes in a predictable way, supporting the ecological rationale that suppressing an invader can allow natives to reclaim space and resources. Objective five focuses on coordination with USGS to establish field trials for Phragmites and other targeted invasives, which is the step needed to evaluate whether lab and greenhouse findings translate into realistic field conditions and management practices.

On the administrative side, the opportunity is listed as discretionary funding through a cooperative agreement, under the USGS program for Research and Data Collection (CFDA 15.808), with an activity category labeled Education. It anticipated a single award, with no cost-sharing or matching requirement. The estimated total funding is listed at $499,999, and the award amount for this opportunity is specified with a ceiling and floor of $165,000. Eligible applicants are public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, aligning with the research-intensive and resource-building nature of the work. The posting date was Feb 26, 2015, with an application closing date of Mar 12, 2015, and the opportunity later archived on Apr 11, 2015. The contact listed for access issues is Gail Walker, Contract Specialist, at 303-236-9334.

Overall, the opportunity is essentially funding continued development of a targeted, genetics-informed invasive plant control platform. Its deliverables are both practical and foundational: improved screening methods to quickly evaluate gene-silencing constructs, new transcriptome datasets and searchable resources for additional invasive species, validated silencing vectors that measurably reduce invasive plant performance, competition experiments that connect molecular effects to ecological outcomes, and coordinated field trials that begin to translate the approach into real-world management tools for wetlands and forests.

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