Dimensions: Community assembly and decomposer function of aquatic fungi along a salinity gradient

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A diverse group of fungi decompose wood in water, providing a significant fraction of the energy and nutrients that support some freshwater and saltwater foodwebs. It is not known what fungi may colonize and then persist on submerged wood, whether particular species are important for decomposition, or whether particular genes that may be necessary for decomposition are shared among many species, making those species somewhat interchangeable. Wood decomposition will be studied in freshwater-estuarine river systems in Pacific coastal Panama. Wood samples will be immersed at four salinity levels and the diversity and species composition of fungi will be compared to the activity of genes associated with wood-degrading enzymes and to changes in wood chemistry through the decomposition process. Conducting this experiment at four salinity levels will reveal how salinity influences fungal gene expression, fungal species interactions, and substrate use. Results from this study will contribute to our understanding of fungal community ecology, will tell us how a decrease in fungal diversity may affect wood decomposition, and will indicate whether particular fungal groups are critical for decomposition.This project will provide unique, cross-disciplinary training in tropical ecology, bioinformatics, and fungal biology at the undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral levels and will support research and publication by U.S. and Latin American students. This project may also reveal novel genes and genetic pathways that have evolved in aquatic fungi and that have application for cellulosic biofuel research and bioremediation. Culture-grown fungi will also be contributed to a bio-prospecting project that screens for activity against cancers and tropical diseases.