Collaborative Research: Diversity and evolution of fungal endophytes in native Hawaiian plants

几乎所有健康的植物叶子内部都有肉眼看不见的真菌群落。这些神秘的共生体被称为叶面真菌内生菌，跨越数亿年的进化历史，与植物适应性有关，被认为由大量未记录的物种和生化化合物组成。尽管它们无处不在，种类繁多，但人们对不同植物中发现不同种类的真菌内生真菌知之甚少。夏威夷特有和濒危的植物区系为收集和描述一组独特的此类生物提供了机会，同时确定了环境、扩散障碍和植物进化历史在多大程度上影响了这些真菌共生体的多样性和跨岛屿的分布。PIS Modify和Perry将使用DNA测序和培养技术相结合的方式，从广泛选择的夏威夷特有植物和不同的生境中清查真菌叶内生真菌。夏威夷的真菌几乎完全没有记录在案，但无疑正在像夏威夷的极度濒危植物一样迅速消失。该项目将列举自然和农业系统中最普遍的跨王国共生之一所涉及的物种，同时也为未来的实验和潜在的天然产品发现保存生物材料。通过这个项目，Perry和Modify将培训当地的高中生、本科生和研究生，学习真菌分类和系统学、分子生态学和进化生物学。

Inside nearly all healthy plant leaves reside a diverse community of fungi invisible to the naked eye. These cryptic symbionts, known as foliar fungal endophytes, span hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history, are linked to plant fitness and are thought to comprise a wealth of undocumented species and biochemical compounds. Despite their ubiquity and diversity, little is known about why different fungal endophyte species are found in different plants. Hawaii's endemic and imperiled flora provides an opportunity to collect and describe a unique set of these organisms, while determining the extent to which environment, barriers to dispersal and plant evolutionary history shape these fungal symbionts' diversity and distribution across islands. PIs Amend and Perry will inventory fungal foliar endophytes from a broad selection of Hawaii's endemic plants and diverse habitats using a combination of DNA sequencing and culturing techniques. Hawaii's fungi are almost entirely undocumented, yet are undoubtedly disappearing as quickly as Hawaii's critically endangered plants. This project will enumerate the species involved in one of the most pervasive cross-kingdom symbioses in natural and agricultural systems, while also preserving biological material for future experimentation and potential natural product discovery. Through this project, Perry and Amend will train local high school, undergraduate and graduate students in fungal taxonomy and systematics, molecular ecology and evolutionary biology.