Microbial facilitation at the leading edge of plant species distributional shifts

微生物促进植物物种分布变化的前沿

• 批准号: 1457827
• 负责人: Katharine Suding
• 金额: $ 77.2万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1457827&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Microbial; facilitation; leading; edge; plant

In high-elevation mountain environments, the ranges of many alpine plant species are limited by a short and cold growing season. Beyond these limits no vascular plants survive, but microbial life thrives. Warmer spring temperatures and earlier snowmelt could allow alpine plant species to expand into these unvegetated areas. This research will examine whether some plant species will benefit from soil microbes as they expand their distribution in response to climate change. The interactions of plants with the high elevation soil microbes will be examined to test whether microbes increase the ability of plants to withstand cold, drought, and low-nutrient stress. The research will advance ecological science in the context of understanding the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and changes in species distribution on the landscape. The project also will contribute to secondary school education through curriculum development.This project will investigate the influence of a key biotic interaction, between plants and soil microbes, on the ability of plant species to track climate change and expand their range uphill in high montane systems. Recent methodological advances will be used to develop experiments to quantify mechanisms that underlie plant-microbial associations and to include results in habitat distribution models. The research includes (1) observational work on distributional patterns of both plants and soil microbes (bacteria and fungi) in a spatially-explicit grid at the upper edge of plant distributions into unvegetated sub-nival areas, (2) manipulations of plant-microbial interactions via inoculation experiments combined with dual-RNA transcriptomics to assay gene expression to describe interactions among plant and microbes and (3) field manipulations of growing season length and plant-microbe associations to quantify the effects of microbial facilitation into previously plant-free zones. Partnership with Rocky Mountain National Park will enable the project to collect data relevant to management concerns and participate in outreach programs, and Science LIVE, an interactive web-based tool, will be used to develop high school curriculum modules.

在高海拔山区环境中，许多高山植物物种的分布范围受到短而寒冷的生长季节的限制。超出这些限制，维管植物就无法生存，但微生物生命却会蓬勃发展。春季气温升高和融雪提前可能会让高山植物物种扩展到这些没有植被的地区。这项研究将研究一些植物物种在扩大其分布以应对气候变化时是否会从土壤微生物中受益。将检查植物与高海拔土壤微生物的相互作用，以测试微生物是否提高植物抵御寒冷、干旱和低营养胁迫的能力。 该研究将在了解气候变化对生物多样性的影响和景观物种分布变化的背景下推进生态科学。该项目还将通过课程开发为中学教育做出贡献。该项目将研究植物和土壤微生物之间的关键生物相互作用对植物物种跟踪气候变化和在高山系统中扩大其范围的能力的影响。最近的方法学进展将用于开发实验，以量化植物-微生物关联的机制，并将结果纳入栖息地分布模型。该研究包括（1）对植物和土壤微生物（细菌和真菌）的分布模式进行观察工作，该网格位于无植被的亚冰雪地区植物分布的上边缘，（2）通过接种实验结合双RNA转录组学来操纵植物-微生物相互作用，以分析基因表达以描述植物和微生物之间的相互作用，以及（3）田间操纵 生长季节长度和植物-微生物关联，以量化微生物对以前无植物区的促进作用。与落基山国家公园的合作将使该项目能够收集与管理问题相关的数据并参与外展计划，而基于网络的交互式工具 Science LIVE 将用于开发高中课程模块。