Research Coordination Networks in Biological Sciences: A Phylogeny for Kingdom Fungi

真菌学家布莱克韦尔、斯帕塔福拉和泰勒很早就接受了分子系统学，一些率先用于真菌的技术已被证明在其他生物中同样有用，包括植物，如核糖体内部转录间隔区(ITS)区域。在过去的十年中，在构建真菌的单一系统发育分类方面取得了很大进展，但目前的数据集仅依赖于大约800个真菌分类群的DNA序列，而所描述的真菌种类估计有80,000个，约占1%。此外，一些真菌学家认为，可能仍有100多万种真菌需要描述，特别是来自热带和世界其他地区的真菌，这些地区的微生物和真菌多样性调查很少。这一研究协调网络(RCN)奖将促进该领域现有工作者之间扩大互动，并有助于吸引新的研究人员参与这一努力，构建真菌王国的系统发育，进而促进发现、鉴定和纳入所有四个主要真菌门的新真菌类群的分类框架，这四大门真菌包括合胞菌、接合菌、担子菌和子囊菌(及其无性和地衣近亲)。一个非排他性、性别(10名女性，31名指定参与者)和不同年龄(27-80岁)的真菌学家群体将创建研究和教育网络，以实现三个目标：(1)促进真菌系统发生学；(2)提供真菌鉴定辅助工具；(3)为真菌学家和教师提供系统发生学和教育材料。在资助的五年中，参与者每年至少举行两次会议，以开发一套用于系统发育分析的样本分类群，选择用于研究的形态和分子特征，讨论适合这些特征的分析方法，促进在收集和担保大型数据集方面的合作和协作(包括与FungalNet财团中的欧洲同事)，并协调教育举措。目前正在努力吸引更多的博士后助理、研究生和本科生以及外国同事进入企业。将通过电子手段和通过公众访问为区域协调中心活动设立的网站来实现快速通信。真菌的系统发育研究将使许多领域受益，如生物医学和药物研究、动植物病理学、食品科学、生物勘探和环境分析与监测。

0090301Blackwell, Spatafora, Taylor Mycologists embraced molecular phylogenetics early, and some of the techniques pioneered for use with fungi have proved equally useful in other organisms, including plants, such as the nuclear ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) regions. During the last decade great progress has been made toward constructing a single phylogenetic classification of fungi, but the current data sets rely upon DNA sequences from only 800 or so fungal taxa, out of an estimated 80,000 described species of fungi, or about 1% representation. Furthermore, some mycologists have argued that there may be over a million species of fungi still to describe, especially from tropical and other regions of the world poorly surveyed for microbial and fungal diversity. This Research Coordination Network (RCN) award will facilitate expanded interactions among current workers in the field and help to attract new researchers to the effort, to construct a phylogeny of the Kingdom Fungi, in turn to facilitate the discovery, identification, and incorporation into a taxonomic framework of novel fungal taxa across all four major phyla of fungi, Chytridiomycetes, Zygomycetes, Basidiomycetes, and Ascomycetes (and their asexual and lichenized relatives). A non-exclusive, gender (10 women of 31 named participants) and age (27-80 years) diverse group of mycologists will create the research and education network, to execute three goals: (1) promote fungal phylogenetics; (2) make available identification aids for fungi; and (3) provide a phylogeny and educational materials to mycologists and teachers. Participants will meet at least twice a year in each of the five years of funding to develop a set of exemplar taxa for phylogenetic analysis, choose morphological and molecular characters for study, discuss analytical methods appropriate to these characters, foster cooperation and collaboration for collection and vouchering of large data sets (including with European colleagues in the FungalNet consortium), and coordinate educational initiatives. Efforts are underway to bring increased numbers of postdoctoral associates, graduate students, and undergraduates into the enterprise, along with foreign colleagues. Rapid communication will be accomplished by electronic means and through public access to a web site established for the RCN activity. Phylogenetic research on fungi will benefit numerous fields like biomedical and pharmaceutical research, animal and plant pathology, food science, bioprospecting, and environmental analysis and monitoring.