Collaborative Research: Evolution, Diversification, and Conservation of a Megadiverse Flagship Lichen Genus

合作研究：巨型多样性旗舰地衣属的进化、多样化和保护

• 批准号: 1354631
• 负责人: Bernard Goffinet
• 金额: $ 22.3万
• 依托单位: University of Connecticut
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1354631&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Evolution; Diversification; Conservation

Lichens are symbiotic associations between a fungus and one or more algae or cyanobacteria. They perform critical ecological functions such as soil stability and water purification in many ecosystems. The lichen genus Sticta performs an important function in forest and woodland ecosystems in temperate and tropical regions. Due to their large size and capacity to store and release large amounts of water, these lichens contribute to the water cycle, including in regions that are water reservoirs for urban areas. Most species contain cyanobacteria that fix atmospheric nitrogen and thus function as biological fertilizers. Sticta species are particularly sensitive indicators of ecological disturbance, air pollution and global climate change, and have therefore disappeared from many habitats over vast geographical regions in the Northern Hemisphere. Although Sticta includes 120 species, genetic data suggest that perhaps as many as 400 species await discovery throughout the world, particularly in tropical mountains. An international team of researchers seeks to fully elucidate Sticta diversity using modern genomic approaches, and reconstruct its evolutionary history to further our understanding of the role of global climatic shifts and geological events on the diversification of these symbiotic fungi. This knowledge is critical in understanding and conserving their important ecological roles they play for our society. The project also contains components of citizen science and outreach materials aimed at public education and ecotourism.This project brings together a broad array of tools to elucidate the evolution and diversification of Sticta within a framework of historical biogeography, including a combination of traditional and next-generation DNA sequencing methods to test the viability of DNA barcoding for a large lichen fungal genus. The research will begin with targeted collection of Sticta specimens which will be used for DNA sequence and morphological analyses. Using phylogenetic methods the project will infer species delimitations, divergence dates among lineages, biogeography, ecological niche and morphological character state reconstructions. Novel approaches that effectively integrate molecular and morphological data are implemented. This includes morphology-based phylogenetic binning to place historical type specimens within the molecular phylogeny. These tools will resolve the biodiversity questions within Sticta and generate tools essential to their identification. The evolution of phenotypes and photosymbiodemes (lichens that include two different types of photobionts) and their importance for the understanding of morphogenesis and interactions of fungal and algal or cyanobacterial partners in lichens will be studied. The project trains two postdocs and includes two international workshops.

地衣是真菌与一种或多种藻类或蓝细菌之间的共生关联。他们在许多生态系统中执行关键的生态功能，例如土壤稳定性和水纯化。地衣属Sticta在温带和热带地区的森林和林地生态系统中发挥了重要功能。由于它们的大小和释放大量水的能力和能力，这些地衣有助于水上周期，包括在城市地区的水库中。大多数物种含有固定大气氮的蓝细菌，从而充当生物肥料。 Sticta物种是生态干扰，空气污染和全球气候变化的特别敏感指标，因此从北半球广阔地区的许多栖息地中消失了。尽管Sticta包含120种，但遗传数据表明，在世界各地，尤其是在热带山脉中，可能有多达400种的物种正在等待发现。一支国际研究人员试图使用现代基因组方法充分阐明Sticta的多样性，并重建其进化史，以进一步了解我们对全球气候变化和地质事件对这些共生真菌多元化的作用的理解。 这些知识对于理解和保护其为我们社会扮演的重要生态角色至关重要。 The project also contains components of citizen science and outreach materials aimed at public education and ecotourism.This project brings together a broad array of tools to elucidate the evolution and diversification of Sticta within a framework of historical biogeography, including a combination of traditional and next-generation DNA sequencing methods to test the viability of DNA barcoding for a large lichen fungal genus.这项研究将从有针对性的StictA标本的收集开始，该标本标本将用于DNA序列和形态学分析。使用系统发育方法，该项目将推断物种划界，谱系之间的差异日期，生物地理学，生态位和形态学特征状态重建。实施了有效整合分子和形态学数据的新方法。这包括基于形态的系统发育构架，以将历史类型标本放置在分子系统发育中。 这些工具将解决Sticta中的生物多样性问题，并为其识别生成必不可少的工具。 将研究表型和光合物的演变（包括两种不同类型的光摄影的地衣）及其对理解lichens中真菌和藻类或氰基伴侣的形态发生和相互作用的重要性。该项目训练两个博士后，包括两个国际研讨会。