Building Concepts for Succession: Indentifying Mechanisms for Ectomycorrhizal Fungus Succession and Developing Undergraduate Education/Research Opportunities

植物和真菌群落在受到严重干扰的地点（如冰川前地、火山存款区）建立，其演替顺序相当清楚。演替及其机制一直是生态学研究的热点，许多生态学理论解释了与演替相关的植物和真菌群落变化。 该建议依赖于真菌的演替模型，该模型采用了群落组装规则，该规则可以被描述为一组允许生物体在任何生态系统中到达和持久存在的准入规则。 该计划的主要目标是确定和评估冰川前沿生态系统中生物的来源，并确定构成生物（代谢活跃的真菌群落）的生物。 为了研究这个想法，我们将采用新的分子工具，重点放在蛋白质合成核糖体和编码它们的DNA上。 使用直接，核糖体RNA（rRNA;核糖体的构建块）和编码rRNA的基因（rDNA）的同时分析将允许确定哪些生物存在于早期和晚期演替环境中（以rDNA存在），以及哪些生物是活跃的（以rRNA和rDNA存在）。 该建议将通过实验评估真菌演替组装模型中的真菌来源。 这项研究将有助于我们更好地理解真菌群落变化背后的机制。 研究结果将可能作为规划恢复和保护计划的背景。

Communities of plants and fungi establish in severely disturbed sites (e.g. glacier forelands, volcanic deposit areas) in a fairly well described order of succession. Succession and its mechanisms are focal areas in ecology and a number of ecological theories explain the succession-related community change of plants and fungi. This proposal rests on a succession model for fungi that adopts from community assembly rules, which can be described as a set of admission rules that allow arrival and persistence of organisms in any ecosystem. The main goal of this program is to identify and assess the sources of organisms in a glacier forefront ecosystem and to identify the organisms that comprise the living (metabolically active fungal communities). To study this idea, we will employ novel molecular tools that focus on the protein-synthesizing ribosomes and the DNA that encodes them. Use of direct, simultaneous analysis of ribosomal RNA (rRNA; the building block of ribosomes) and the genes (rDNA) that encode rRNA will allow determining which organisms are present in early and late successional environments (present as rDNA) and which of them are active (present as both rRNA and rDNA). This proposal will experimentally assess sources of fungi in an assembly model for fungal succession. The proposed research will improve our understanding of the mechanisms behind the community change of fungi. The results will likely to be relevant as a background for planning restoration and conservation programs.