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: 2106105
• 负责人: Andrew Wilson
• 金额: $ 17.39万
• 依托单位: Denver Botanic Gardens
• 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=2106105&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。许多真菌产生蘑菇形式的子实体。这些形成蘑菇的真菌是森林养分循环的关键，并且与植物相关，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）如何结合起来影响蘑菇形成物种的分布，以及这种分布如何随着气候变化而变化知之甚少。了解蘑菇的分布特别具有挑战性，因为这些真菌一生的大部分时间都是作为无性细胞（菌丝）的分支丝在土壤下度过的，只有当它们产生蘑菇时，人们才知道它们的存在。最近的研究表明，一些真菌可能以菌丝的形式存在于其已知范围之外数千​​公里的植物体内，这是基于它们的有性繁殖（即蘑菇）。这些真菌菌丝范围的扩大表明，不同的因素驱动着这些真菌生命阶段的分布，使预测真菌如何应对不断变化的环境的工作变得更加复杂。这项研究将在八个不同州（阿拉斯加、亚利桑那、科罗拉多、佛罗里达州、堪萨斯州、新罕布什尔州、明尼苏达州、俄勒冈州）。然后，每个地点的气候、植物群落、火和土壤等信息将被用来确定特定真菌能够有性繁殖的条件以及它们只能以菌丝的形式生存的条件。该项目将把科学家与来自蘑菇俱乐部、当地学校和博物馆的 1000 多名社区成员联系起来，他们将参与收集蘑菇并出于科学目的利用真菌 DNA。利用该研究的广泛气候和地理范围，包含不同的植物群落和火灾干扰，我们将测试多个尺度的环境变量如何影响真菌有性和无性阶段的分布。我们还将确定某一阶段真菌（例如蘑菇）的出现是否可以预测其在某个地点其他基质（例如土壤、空气或植物组织）中的出现，从而改进真菌的采样方案。这项研究将共同​​构建迄今为止最完整的大型真菌群落及其关系如何随气候梯度变化的图景，从而建立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，近年来前所未有的火灾使火灾生态学前所未有地进入公众视野，因此扩大对火灾作为生物多样性和生态系统动态的神秘方面驱动因素的认识是及时且引起广泛关注的。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命和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，该项目被认为值得支持。