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

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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.