Collaborative Research: MRA: Distributions of Macrofungi: Quantifying Ecosystem and Climate Drivers of Fungal Reproduction

合作研究：MRA：大型真菌的分布：量化真菌繁殖的生态系统和气候驱动因素

• 批准号: 2106008
• 负责人: Serita Frey
• 金额: $ 15.02万
• 依托单位: University of New Hampshire
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2025-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2106008&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; MRA; Distributions; Macrofungi

Fungi are essential components of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Many fungi produce fruiting bodies in the form of mushrooms. These mushroom-forming fungi are key to forest nutrient cycling and, in association with plants, range from beneficial symbionts to pathogens. Yet, we know very little about how regional, landscape, and local factors such as fire combine to affect the distributions of mushroom-forming species, nor how such distributions may be changing with a shifting climate. Understanding mushroom distributions is particularly challenging because these fungi spend most of their lives as branching filaments of asexual cells (hyphae) below the soil, and there presence only becomes known if and when they produce a mushroom. Recent work has shown that some fungi may occur as hyphae inside plants thousands of kilometers outside their known ranges, which are based on their sexual reproduction (i.e., mushrooms). These extended ranges of fungal hyphae suggest that different factors drive the distributions of life stages of these fungi, complicating efforts to forecast how fungi will respond to changing environments. This research will examine the distributions of mushroom-forming fungi across the United States by combining mushroom collections with sampling of fungal DNA in soils, litter, plant tissues, and the air, at study locations in eight different states (AK, AZ, CO, FL, KS, NH, MN, OR). Information at each site such as climate, plant communities, fire and soils will then be used to determine the conditions under which particular fungi are able to sexually reproduce and where they can only live as hyphae. The project will connect scientists with more than a thousand community members from mushroom clubs, local schools, and museums who will be involved in collecting mushrooms and working with fungal DNA for scientific purposes.Using the extensive climatic and geographic scope of the study, containing diverse plant communities and fire disturbances, we will test how environmental variables at multiple scales influence distributions of sexual and asexual stages of fungi. We will also determine whether occurrence of a fungus in one stage (e.g., mushrooms) is predictive of its occurrence in other substrates at a site (e.g., soils, air, or plant tissues), allowing improved sampling schemes for fungi. Together, this study will build the most complete picture to date of how macrofungal communities and their relationships change across climate gradients, thus building capacity to predict changes in fungal distributions and ecosystem processes under changing climate. Further, unprecedented fires in recent years have placed fire ecology in the public eye like never before, such that expanding understanding of fire as a driver of cryptic aspects of biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics is timely and of broad interest.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.

真菌是全球陆地生态系统的重要组成部分。许多真菌以蘑菇形式产生水果体。这些形成蘑菇的真菌是森林营养循环的关键，与植物相关，从有益的共生体到病原体。 然而，我们对区域，景观和当地因素（例如火灾）的相结合以影响蘑菇形成物种的分布，也不了解这种分布如何随着气候变化而变化。理解蘑菇分布特别具有挑战性，因为这些真菌的大部分时间都将其作为土壤下方无性细胞（菌丝）的细丝，并且只有在存在以及何时产生蘑菇的情况下才会存在。最近的工作表明，在其已知范围内数千公里的植物内可能会发生一些真菌，这些真菌基于其性繁殖（即蘑菇）。这些扩展的真菌菌丝范围表明，不同的因素推动了这些真菌的生命阶段的分布，从而使人们的努力变得复杂，以预测真菌如何对不断变化的环境做出反应。这项研究将通过将蘑菇的真菌与蘑菇形成真菌的分布，通过将蘑菇收集与土壤，垃圾，植物组织和空气中真菌DNA的采样相结合，在八个不同州的研究地点（AK，AZ，CO，CO，，AK，CO，CO， FL，KS，NH，MN，OR）。然后将使用每个地点的信息，例如气候，植物群落，火灾和土壤，以确定特定真菌能够性繁殖以及它们只能作为菌丝生活的条件。该项目将将科学家与来自蘑菇俱乐部，当地学校和博物馆的一千多名社区成员联系起来，他们将参与收集蘑菇并与真菌DNA合作，以进行科学目的。植物群落和火灾障碍，我们将测试多个尺度上的环境变量如何影响真菌性和无性阶段的分布。我们还将确定在一个阶段（例如蘑菇）是否在一个地点（例如土壤，空气或植物组织）中发生真菌（例如，蘑菇）的出现，可以改善真菌的采样方案。总之，这项研究将建立迄今为止最完整的图片，即大型群落及其关系如何在气候梯度之间发生变化，从而建立了预测气候变化下真菌分布和生态系统过程变化的能力。此外，近年来，前所未有的大火像以前一样将火灾生态置于公众眼中，因此扩大对火作为生物多样性和生态系统动态神秘方面的驱动力的理解是及时的，并且具有广泛的利益。使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准，通过评估被认为值得支持。