“They had a gap in studying viruses there, so we began talking about how we might work together on studying a built environment,” Rose said. “They engineer natural systems to keep fish and mammals from all different environments … so we thought, ‘What better place to go and look at the health of water, the healthy water microbiome, than in the aquarium?’ We combined our efforts and our interests.”

According to the release, the research is part of Shedd’s Microbiome Project, “the world’s first comprehensive look at microbiomes in a human-built and controlled aquatic ecosystem.”

Rose and MSU postdoctoral researcher Jean Pierre Nshimyimana will be working with Shedd Vice President of Animal Health William Van Bonn and other researchers on the project, according to the release.

In their preliminary research, Rose and her team have already hypothesized that the diversity of animals in a biome correlates with the diversity of viruses.

“It’s very exciting to look at, ‘What does a biodiverse microbiome in an aquatic environment look like and when does it get upset?’” Rose said. “If there’s an upset to it, if the animals aren’t feeling well or the temperature goes out of whack or something else happens, what happens to that stable system?”

Rose said the research will involve identifying more aquatic viruses as well as key viruses that are associated with disease, which might have an international impact.

“Only a very small percentage are identified, so our databases are very poor for trying to identify viruses, so we think we’ll be able to add to this database and that will be very, very valuable globally for the scientific community,” Rose said.

Rose said her initial scholarship is for two years, but her work could continue for up to a decade.

“We’re busy writing other grants, so hopefully we’ll get other funding to continue this work into the next decade, five to 10 years, and we’ll see where it goes,” Rose said. “(I’m) very very excited, (this partnership is) one of a kind in the world.”