DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Local Adaptation of Symbiotic Fungi to Serpentine Soils

已知极端环境会对生物体施加强大的选择，导致局部规模的种群水平分化。这项研究将研究共生真菌对蛇纹土的局部适应，蛇纹土是一种重金属含量高的极端环境，已知会导致植物的进化变化。共生真菌收集的蛇纹和非蛇纹橡树在葡萄牙东北部的森林将在这两种土壤类型中生长在一个受控的互惠实验，将阐明真菌耐受蛇纹环境的能力。这项研究的结果将为极端环境中共生真菌和植物的生态学和进化提供重要的新见解，并将增加我们对蛇形生态系统的理解。这项研究的更广泛的影响包括研究生培训和生物保护，生物修复和恢复的相关性。土壤中含有多种植物特有种，其中许多被列为受威胁植物。提供有关这些生境中共生真菌的信息对于为生物多样性保护和管理措施提供信息和指导至关重要。这项研究也将为真菌如何科普重金属热点提供有价值的信息。这对于生物修复领域是极其有用的，因为重金属耐受共生真菌耐受污染区域（例如矿山废物沉积物）的能力对于植物群落的建立和维持具有重大意义，这继而影响整个陆地生态系统的恢复。此外，真菌生活在蛇纹岩土壤是很好的候选人的模式系统，调查重金属耐受机制。

Extreme environments are known to exert strong selection on organisms, leading to population-level differentiation at local scales. This research will examine local adaptation in symbiotic fungi to serpentine soil, an extreme environment with high heavy metal content that is known to have caused evolutionary changes in plants. Symbiotic fungi collected from serpentine and non-serpentine oak forests in northeastern Portugal will be grown in both soil types in a controlled reciprocal experiment that will elucidate the ability of fungi to tolerate serpentine environments. Results from this study will provide critical new insights into the ecology and evolution of symbiotic fungi and plants in extreme environments, and they will add to our understanding of serpentine ecosystems. Broader impacts of this study include graduate training and relevance to biological conservation, bioremediation, and restoration. Serpentine soils host multiple plant endemics, many listed as threatened. Providing information on the symbiotic fungi occurring in these habitats will be critical for informing and guiding biodiversity conservation and management measures. This study will also provide valuable information on how fungi cope with heavy metal hotspots. This is extremely useful for the field of bioremediation, since the ability of heavy metal tolerant symbiotic fungi to withstand polluted areas (such as mine waste deposits) has major implications for the establishment and maintenance of plant communities, which then affects recovery of entire terrestrial ecosystems. Also, fungi living in serpentine soils are excellent candidates for model systems for investigating mechanisms of heavy metal tolerance.