Collaborative research: Evolutionary trade-offs in the adaptation of decomposers to global warming: Implications for ecosystem C balance

负责腐烂和碳循环的土壤真菌可能会随着全球变暖而进化。这可能对全球变化产生严重后果。这组研究人员认为，温度升高可能有利于真菌的进化，真菌可以分解土壤中长期存在的（顽固的）物质。因此，更多的温室气体将被释放到大气中，形成一个反馈循环，可能导致气温进一步升高。这个问题在阿拉斯加北部的北方森林尤为紧迫，那里的土壤中储存着大量的顽固性物质，而且比其他地方变暖得更快。研究小组成员将在这些森林中模拟全球变暖，并检查其对真菌及其降解活动的影响。此外，他们将在实验室实验中把真菌暴露在变暖的环境中，利用基因和生理测试来检验它们分解顽固物质的能力是如何随时间变化的。如果没有真菌分解有机物，人类的生命就无法存在，因为它们从死去的生物体中回收营养物质，供植物、动物和人类使用。这项研究将为全球变暖可能影响真菌的不同方式提供明确的预测。它也将是第一个研究这些微生物对全球变暖的反应的进化。此外，研究人员将培训一名博士后研究员、两名研究生和几名本科生研究人员，重点是招募来自科学领域代表性不足群体的学生。调查人员还将邀请附近一所小学的学生和老师参加为期一天的蘑菇探索和全球变化实地考察。

Soil fungi responsible for the decay and recycling of carbon may evolve in response to global warming. This could have serious consequences with respect to global change. This team of investigators posit that warmer temperatures may favor the evolution of fungi that can break down material that is long-lived(?recalcitrant?) in the soil . As a consequence, more greenhouse gases would be released to the atmosphere in a feedback loop that could lead to even warmer temperatures. This issue is particularly urgent in the northern, boreal forests of Alaska, which store large amounts of recalcitrant matter in their soils, and which are warming more rapidly than elsewhere. Research team members will be simulating global warming in such forests and examining its effects on fungi and their degradation activities. In addition, they will be exposing fungi to warming in laboratory experiments that will use genetic and physiological tests to examine how their ability to decompose recalcitrant materials changes over time.Human life cannot exist without fungi to decompose organic matter, since they recycle nutrients from dead organisms for use by plants, animals, and people. This study will provide explicit predictions of the different ways that global warming maybe affecting fungi. It will also be one of the first to examine the evolution of these microbes in response to global warming. In addition, the investigators will train one postdoctoral researcher, two graduate students and several undergraduate researchers, with an emphasis on recruitment of students from underrepresented groups in science. The investigators will also invite students and teachers from a nearby elementary school to participate in day-long mushroom forays and a global change field trip.