Collaborative Research: Fungal Life History Strategies & Evolution: Insights from Isotopic Measurements and Phylogenetic Analysis

合作研究：真菌生活史策略

• 批准号: 0843278
• 负责人: David Hibbett
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Clark University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-04-15 至 2011-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0843278&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Fungal; Life; History

Fungi play important ecological roles and affect society through their activities as decayers, mutualists, and pathogens of plants and animals. Their enzymes are critical to biofuel production. Despite their importance, there is little known about how many fungi obtain food. Mycorrhizal fungi obtain sugars from plants in exchange for helping their host plants take up nutrients, and saprotrophic fungi obtain their energy and nutrients from decomposition of dead organic matter. Whether fungi switch between nutritional strategies is a key question in the evolutionary ecology of fungi. Recently, measuring carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14 isotopes has been shown to reliably assess nutritional strategy, and therefore provides new opportunities to examine the evolution of nutritional strategies in fungi. This study will use archived fungi from Australia, Asia, and the US to conduct a broad survey of fungal nutritional strategies. A site-specific study at the Harvard Forest research site in Massachusetts will also be used to examine whether fungi can switch nutritional strategies. These studies will greatly expand knowledge on the links among fungal function, phylogeny, and ecology. The broader scientific impacts of the proposed research will result from integrating functional (isotopic) methods and genetic methods in a novel collaboration that should stimulate interest within the larger community of evolutionary biologists, ecologists, and mycologists. These methods could be readily expanded to Europe and Africa to include the global distribution of mushroom-producing fungi. This project will also incorporate current scientific research into specific educational activities designed to inspire future scientists including high school (fungal forays), college (Clark University's ACE Summer Institute, Research Experience for Undergraduates at Harvard Forest, the UNH Undergraduate Research Conference), and graduate students.

真菌扮演着重要的生态角色，并通过其活动作为腐烂，共同主义者和动植物的病原体来影响社会。 它们的酶对生物燃料生产至关重要。尽管它们的重要性，但对多少真菌获取食物知之甚少。菌根真菌从植物中获取糖，以换取帮助其宿主植物吸收营养，而腐生真菌从死亡有机物的分解中获取能量和营养。真菌在营养策略之间切换是否是真菌进化生态学中的关键问题。最近，测量碳-12，碳13和碳14同位素已显示可靠地评估营养策略，因此提供了新的机会来检查真菌营养策略的演变。 这项研究将使用来自澳大利亚，亚洲和美国的存档真菌对真菌营养策略进行广泛的调查。 马萨诸塞州哈佛森林研究地点进行的特定地点研究也将用于检查真菌是否可以改变营养策略。 这些研究将大大扩展有关真菌功能，系统发育和生态学之间联系的知识。 拟议研究对拟议研究的更广泛的科学影响将是由新型合作中的综合功能（同位素）方法和遗传方法造成的，该方法应激发进化生物学家，生态学家和真菌学家的较大社区中的兴趣。 这些方法很容易扩展到欧洲和非洲，包括全球产生蘑菇的真菌的分布。 该项目还将将当前的科学研究纳入特定的教育活动中，旨在激发未来的科学家，包括高中（真菌企业），学院（克拉克大学的ACE夏季学院，哈佛森林本科生的研究经验，Harvard Forest的研究经验，UND本科生研究会议）和研究生。