Collaborative Research: Filling the largest void of the fungal genealogy of life (the Pezizomycotina) and integrating symbiotic, environmental and physiological data layers

植物和真菌在自然界中是相互依存的，通过相互作用对双方都有利(互惠互利，真菌分解枯死的植物材料)或对一方不利(寄生)。因此，如果不在共生相互作用的背景下对真菌和植物生物学进行研究，就不可能完全理解它们。随着新的DNA测序技术的出现，人们越来越清楚地看到，已知的10万种真菌只占自然界中估计存在的510万种真菌的一小部分。令人惊讶的是，这种未知真菌多样性的最大部分似乎隐藏在植物和地衣的健康叶片中，作为内生和内生真菌。众所周知，内生菌可以保护植物免受病原体的侵袭，并增强它们对干旱和高温等非生物胁迫的抵抗力。这些高度多样化的内生和内生真菌大多归类于一组丝状子囊菌目真菌，称为Pezizmycotina。这项研究的主要目的是重建青霉菌纲的系统发育(系谱关系)，并将这一进化框架与丰富而多样的一组生物数据联系起来。这项研究将得到不同的外联活动的补充，让高中生参与研究，在五个州培训初级科学家，并开发具有潜在应用的工具，以研究生命科学中物种相互作用的演变。加速发现这些隐藏的真菌也有望为新的药物和生防产品提供丰富的次生化合物来源。本研究的目标是填补真菌生命谱系中最大的系统发育空白，并将不同的数据层与涌现树相结合，以此作为了解真菌-植物共生的进化、生态学和生理学的手段。依赖培养和独立的方法将产生迄今为止最大的内生和内生真菌样本，针对陆地、水生和海洋环境中的各种植物、地衣、大型藻类以及共生的微藻和蓝藻，重点放在生物丰富但研究不足的生物气候带。高效的收集和分析管道将使来自这些新的共生真菌的系统发育数据能够迅速整合到真菌生命谱系中，而新的生物多样性信息学工具将把现有的多基因座和系统基因组框架与通过下一代测序获得的短序列读数结合起来。由此产生的进化树，通过对目前未知的生物多样性进行系统采样而大大丰富，将在三个数据层(共生系统发生、生态系统发生和生理系统发生)与寄主和营养光谱相结合，首次能够从地理数据、非生物和生物因素以及能够与大多数群落所依赖的植物进行互利互动的生理特征中获得新的见解。

Plants and fungi are interdependently connected in nature, through interactions that are beneficial to both (mutualism, and decomposition of dead plant material by fungi) or detrimental to one partner (parasitism). Therefore, fungal and plant biology cannot be fully understood without studying them within the context of their symbiotic interactions. With the advent of new DNA sequencing technologies, it is becoming clear that the 100,000 known species of fungi represent only a tiny fraction of the estimated 5.1 million species of fungi present in nature. Amazingly, the largest fraction of this unknown fungal diversity seems to be hidden in healthy leaves of plants and lichens, as endophytic and endolichenic fungi. Endophytes are known to protect plants from pathogens, and enhance their resistance to abiotic stresses such as droughts and high temperatures. Most of these hyperdiverse endophytic and endolichenic fungi are classified within a group of filamentous Ascomycota fungi called the Pezizomycotina. The main aims of this research are to reconstruct a phylogeny (genealogical relationships) for the Pezizomycotina and link this evolutionary framework with a rich and diverse set of organismal data. The research will be complemented by diverse outreach activities, engagement of high school students in research, training of junior scientists in five states, and development of tools with potential applications for studying the evolution of species interactions across the life sciences. Accelerating the discovery of these hidden fungi also promises to provide a rich source of secondary compounds for new pharmaceutical and biocontrol products.The objectives of this study are to fill the largest phylogenetic void in the fungal genealogy of life (the Pezizomycotina) and integrate diverse data layers with the emergent tree as a means to understand the evolution, ecology, and physiology of fungal-plant symbioses. Culture-dependent and independent methods will generate the largest sample of endophytic and endolichenic fungi to date, targeting diverse plants, lichens, macroalgae, and co-occurring microalgae and cyanobacteria in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine environments, with a focus on biotically rich but understudied bioclimatic zones. Efficient collecting and analytical pipelines will enable rapid integration of phylogenetic data from these new symbiotic fungi into the fungal genealogy of life, while novel biodiversity informatics tools will integrate existing multi-locus and phylogenomic frameworks with short sequence reads obtained with next-generation sequencing. Resulting evolutionary trees, greatly enriched by systematic sampling of currently unknown biodiversity, will be integrated with host and trophic spectra in three data layers (symbio-phylogenetic, eco-phylogenetic, and physio-phylogenetic), enabling for the first time novel insights from geographic data, abiotic and biotic factors, and the physiological traits that enable mutualistic interactions with plants on which most communities depend.