Collaborative Research: Leveraging historical collections and new surveys to characterize foundational shifts in vital symbioses in the threatened Arctic

合作研究：利用历史收藏和新调查来描述受威胁的北极地区重要共生关系的根本性变化

基本信息

批准号：
2031925
负责人：
Anne Arnold
金额：
$ 38.8万
依托单位：
University of Arizona
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2020-11-01 至 2024-10-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2031925&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Collaborative Research Leveraging historical collections

项目摘要

All living things on Earth, and the environments that sustain them, are shaped by symbiotic interactions. These interactions are important worldwide, but they are especially vital for organisms that live in extreme environments such as the terrestrial Arctic, where diverse but understudied symbiotic fungi (fungal endophytes) live inside the healthy plants and lichens that drive ecosystem processes. Fungal endophytes are hyperdiverse and represent a large fraction of Earth’s undiscovered fungal biodiversity. They are important in shaping their hosts’ responses to environmental stresses, including those intrinsic to the Arctic as well as the rapid and pervasive environmental changes associated with the warming of our planet. This project will discover and chart the diversity of fungal endophytes in iconic plants and lichens of the Arctic, provide information on how communities of endophytes have changed over time, and test predictions about how symbiotic communities are sensitive to environmental factors, with implications for understanding biodiversity dynamics in the vast Arctic region and beyond. The scientific aims of the project parallel a commitment to inclusively training and diversifying the next generation of biodiversity scientists while contributing broadly to science, education, and society. Overall the project will provide new insight into the biological resources of the North American Arctic by discovering diversity, tracking its environmental sensitivity over broad geographic, environmental, and temporal scales, and contributing to training, education, and outreach relevant to strengthening national resources in STEM.The research team will conduct two field campaigns to test predictions regarding endophyte diversity, community composition, and distributions along transects that span all major Arctic subzones in eastern and western North America. Endophyte communities will be detected in representative plants and lichens via culture-based and culture-free, next-generation sequencing approaches. Field- and specimen-related data from these field collections will be contextualized by surveys of endophytes in herbarium specimens of plants and lichens collected over the past 100 years at these same sites, leveraging a recently validated approach for accessing endophyte communities in preserved host tissues. DNA sequences for newly discovered endophytes will be integrated into new tools for mapping Earth’s evolutionary history and biodiversity, with a framework based on more than 20 years of global sampling. Finally, genomic, phylogenomic, and population-genomic analyses will be used to explore diversification of endophytes and related fungi, with a focus on the most diverse lineages that engage in these important symbioses. Through these endeavors the project will generate and make public diverse new data, biodiversity informatics tools, protocols, specimens, outreach activities, educational modules, and training relevant to a wide array of disciplines.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

地球上的所有生物以及维持它们的环境都是由共生相互作用塑造的，这些相互作用在世界范围内都很重要，但对于生活在北极等极端环境中的生物体尤其重要，那里存在着多种多样但尚未得到充分研究的共生真菌。内生真菌）生活在驱动生态系统过程的健康植物和地衣内。内生真菌高度多样化，占地球上未被发现的真菌生物多样性的很大一部分，它们对于塑造宿主对环境的反应非常重要。该项目将发现并绘制北极标志性植物和地衣中真菌内生菌的多样性，提供有关社区如何应对的信息。随着时间的推移，内生菌的数量发生了变化，并测试了关于共生群落对环境因素如何敏感的预测，这对了解广阔的北极地区及其他地区的生物多样性动态具有重要意义。该项目的科学目标与对包容性培训和多样化的承诺相一致。生物多样性的产生总体而言，该项目将通过发现多样性、跟踪其在广泛地理、环境和时间范围内的环境敏感性以及促进培训，为科学、教育和社会做出广泛贡献。与加强 STEM 方面的国家资源相关的教育和外展活动。研究小组将开展两项实地活动，以测试有关内生菌多样性、群落组成以及横跨北美东部和西部所有主要北极亚区的内生菌群落沿横断面分布的预测。将被检测到通过对过去 100 年来收集的植物和地衣标本中的内生菌的调查，将通过基于培养和无培养的下一代测序方法从这些野外收集中获得代表性植物和地衣的相关数据。在这些相同的地点，利用最近验证的方法来获取保存的宿主组织中新发现的内生菌 DNA 序列，将被整合到绘制地球进化历史和生物多样性的新工具中，并具有基于框架的功能。最后，基因组、系统基因组和群体基因组分析将用于探索内生菌和相关真菌的多样性，重点是通过这些努力参与这些重要共生的最多样化的谱系。该项目将生成并公开各种新数据、生物多样性信息学工具、协议、标本、外展活动、教育模块以及与广泛学科相关的培训。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。