CSBR: Ownership Transfer of University of Maine Chytrid Fungal Collection to University of Michigan

该项目将确保收集到大约500种被称为壶菌的真菌群的濒危品种。作为世界上最大的壶菌集合，它通过为学术和工业环境中的生物学家提供培养，为研究界提供资源，从而在200多篇已发表的文章中发现生物学见解。虽然这些微小真菌通过游动孢子繁殖，但它们在土壤以及淡水和咸水中都存在；它们作为寄生虫和降解基质（如花粉和其他植物材料、昆虫外骨骼、毛发等）发挥着重要的生态作用。壶菌因其在全球两栖动物数量下降中的作用而臭名昭著；该藏品包含来自世界各地的180多种两栖动物病原体。这个系列是由缅因州大学的乔伊斯·朗科（Joyce Longcore）在没有机构支持的情况下开发和维护了超过25年。为了保护壶菌的收藏，它将被转移到密歇根大学最近改建的研究博物馆综合体，在那里它将被储存在最先进的冷冻保存设施中，并由大学的植物标本室管理。该收藏将成为科学界研究壶菌及其在陆地和水生系统中的功能的资源。壶菌需要特殊的生长和维持条件，因为它们是水生真菌，用鞭毛、无壁的游动孢子繁殖。缅因大学的大部分藏品都是冷冻保存的，这使得在冷冻状态下进行机构间转移成为可能，然而，大约12%的藏品常规地在液体培养中转移，因为它不适合冷冻。该项目的第一个目标是将缅因州的藏品转移到安娜堡的研究博物馆综合体，在那里，真菌菌株将被储存在液氮冰柜中。液氮蒸气中的低温保存使样品在-193摄氏度下保持稳定；由于无意中暴露在-80℃以上的温度会影响冷冻培养物的生存能力，因此液氮储存比典型的带电动压缩机的超低温冰箱储存更安全。该项目的第二个目标是开发冷冻和保护剩余12%耐低温保存菌株的方法。为了验证培养集合的分类分配并更好地表征其内容，DNA条形码将通过测序和访问18S和its核糖体RNA基因区域来进行。最后，该项目将通过在网上提供有关菌株的额外数据并改进培养物的分发和维护，将这些收集物转化为公共资源。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will secure an endangered collection of approximately 500 diverse, living strains of a fungal group known as chytrids. As the world's largest collection of chytrids, it serves as a resource to the research community by providing cultures to biologists in both academic and industrial settings, resulting in biological insights found in over 200 published articles. Although these microscopic fungi reproduce with a swimming spore they occur in soils as well as in fresh and saline waters; they fill important ecological roles as parasites and also by degrading substrates such as pollen and other plant material, insect exoskeletons, hair, etc. Chytrids are notorious for their role in the global decline of amphibians; the collection contains over 180 strains of the amphibian pathogen from around the world. This collection was developed and maintained by Joyce Longcore at the University of Maine without institutional support for more than 25 years. To safeguard the chytrid collection, it will be moved to the University of Michigan's recently remodeled Research Museums Complex where it will be stored in a state-of-the-art cryopreservation facility and managed by the University's Herbarium unit. The collection will be a resource for the scientific community involved in research on chytrids and their function in terrestrial and aquatic systems.Chytrid fungi require special growth and maintenance conditions, because they are aquatic fungi that reproduce with flagellated, wall-less zoospores. Most of the University of Maine collection is cryopreserved, making inter-institutional transfer in a frozen state possible, however, approximately 12% of the collection is routinely transferred in liquid cultures, because it has not been amendable to freezing. The first goal of the project is to move the collection in Maine to the Research Museums Complex in Ann Arbor where fungal strains will be stored in liquid nitrogen freezers. Cryopreservation in the vapor of liquid nitrogen stabilizes samples at -193 degrees Celsius; because inadvertent exposure to temperatures above -80 affects the viability of frozen cultures, storage in liquid nitrogen is safer than storage in typical ultralow freezers with electrical compressors. A second goal of this project is to develop methods to freeze and secure the remaining 12% of strains that have been resistant to cryopreservation. To verify taxonomic assignments of the culture collection and to better characterize its contents, DNA barcoding will be performed by sequencing and making accessible the 18S and ITS ribosomal RNA gene regions. Finally, this project will transform the collection into a public resource by making additional data about the strains accessible online and improving the distribution and maintenance of the cultures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.