ABR: Refining and Broadening of a Method for Estimating Productivity of Coastal-Marine Eucaryotic Decomposer Microbes

这个项目的Pi设计了一种技术， 事实上，真核生物的瞬时生产率 海洋微生物有机营养体（真菌），类似于 那些先前可用于原核有机营养体的。 这 方法，这是在生态学杂志，代表了一个 技术突破;它承诺允许第一个 海洋边缘生态系统真菌生产力的估计， 海洋环境的一部分，其中真菌可能具有 它们对碳流的最大影响，从维管植物到 海洋食物网 该技术（缩写为Ac-ERG）涉及 测量放射性标记的乙酸盐掺入到 （几乎）唯一的真菌甾醇，麦角甾醇。 Ac-ERG技术 是不成熟的;这个项目将通过实验来打磨它， 它的几个方面，学习它的优点和缺点， 更好地界定其可解释性和适用范围。 两 Ac-ERG技术的明显局限性是：1） 对浸没样品的限制（ 潮间植物的芽发生，而芽是出于 水）; 2）不适用于海洋卵菌（非常常见 海洋落叶的原生生物分解者;他们不 合成麦角甾醇）。 这个项目将试图扩大 Ac-ERG技术的实用性，通过修改它，以消除这两个 通过以下限制：1）将放射性乙酸盐呈现给样品 在挥发状态; 2）发现中性脂质特有的 卵菌和随后的放射性乙酸流向它们。 的结果 这项研究应该是一个更强大，更持久，更好的 估算海洋真核生物有机营养的已知方法 生产力

The Pi of this project has devised a technique for estimating virtually the instantaneous rate of production for eucaryotic marine microbial organo-osmotrophs (eumycotic fungi), analogous to those previously available for procaryotic organo-osmotrophs. This method, which is in in the Journal ECOLOGY, represents a technological breakthrough; it promises to permit the first estimates of fungal productivity in ocean-edge ecosystems, the portion of the marine environment wherein fungi are likely to have their greatest impact on carbon flow, from vascular plants to marine food webs. The technique (abbreviated as Ac-ERG) involves measuring the incorporation of radio-labeled acetate into the (nearly) uniquely fungal sterol, ergosterol. The Ac-ERG technique is unseasoned; this project will polish it via experimentation with several of its facets, to learn its strengths and weaknesses and better define its inter-pretability and range of aptness. Two conspicuous limitations of the Ac-ERG technique are: 1) restriction to submerged samples (much of the decomposition of shoots of intertidal plants occurs while shoots are out of the water); 2) in-applicability for marine oomycotes (very common protoctistan decomposers of marine leaf litter; they do not synthesize ergosterol). This project will attempt to try to expand the utility of Ac-ERG technique by modifying it to remove these two constraints through: 1) presenting the radio-acetate to the sample in a volatilized state; 2) finding neutral lipids peculiar to oomycotes and following radio-acetate flow to them. The results of this research should be a more powerful, more durable, and better understood means of estimating marine eucaryotic organo-osmotrophic productivity.