CSBR: Ownership Transfer of University of Alabama Chytrid Culture Collection to University of Michigan

该项目将确保从一种名为chytrids的物种中收集约450种活的真菌，这些真菌属于濒危物种。这些藏品是阿拉巴马大学(UA)的玛莎·鲍威尔博士和彼得·莱彻博士在过去42年里开发的。它作为生物材料支持了100多篇关于壶菌的科学论文，并包含了任何其他收藏中未曾见过的独特菌株。菊苣是一个研究较少的类群，它们的分离和维护需要独特的条件，该类群中已知的多样性的很大一部分都体现在这个集合中。虽然这些微小真菌通过游动孢子繁殖，但它们存在于土壤以及淡水和咸水中；它们作为寄生虫发挥重要的生态作用，也作为独特物质的分解者，如花粉、毛发和昆虫外骨骼。UA chytrid藏品将与之前从缅因州大学获得的藏品合并为一个联合藏品，称为密歇根大学的游动孢子型真真菌收藏(CZEUM)。正在开发CZEUM收集，以作为chytrid多样性的储存库，以支持全球科学界对chytrid真菌的研究。这个项目有四个主要目标。第一个目标是完成UA chytrid收藏品的实物转移到密歇根大学研究博物馆综合体的冷冻保存设施，在那里它将储存在零下193摄氏度的液氮蒸气中。第二个目标是测试收集的每一种培养物的生存能力，并将可行的材料重新冷冻在液氮冷冻箱中。以前，大多数样本都保存在超低冰柜中，这可能会导致生存能力的恶化。第三个目标是对从未尝试过冷冻保存的剩余5%的藏品进行冷冻保存。该项目的最终目标是利用核糖体RNA基因来确定菌株的特征，以便提供对样本真正的系统发育多样性的估计。后一个目标涉及使用牛津纳米孔技术对缺乏这些数据的菌株的核糖体RNA的小亚基、大亚基和内部转录间隔区进行测序。该项目成功完成后，将确保这一独特的参考资料收集，并将加强密歇根大学和其他机构对菊苣真菌研究的基础设施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 about 450 living strains of fungi from a group known as chytrids. The collection was developed by Dr. Martha Powell and Dr. Peter Letcher at the University of Alabama (UA) over the last 42 years. It served as the biological material that supported over 100 scientific papers on chytrids and contains unique strains unknown from any other collection. Chytrids are a poorly studied group which require unique conditions for their isolation and maintenance, and a large portion of known diversity of the group is represented in this collection. Although these microscopic fungi reproduce with a swimming spore (zoospore) they occur in soils as well as in fresh and saline waters; they fill important ecological roles as parasites and also as decomposers of unique material such as pollen, hair, and insect exoskeletons. The UA chytrid collection will be combined with a previously secured collection from the University of Maine into a joint collection termed the Collection of Zoosporic Eufungi at the University of Michigan (CZEUM). The CZEUM collection is being developed in order to serve as a repository for chytrid diversity in support of research on chytrid fungi by the global scientific community. This project has four primary goals. The first goal is to complete a physical transfer of the UA chytrid collection to the cryopreservation facility at the University of Michigan Research Museums Complex where it will be stored in the vapor of liquid nitrogen at -193 degrees Celsius. The second goal is to test the viability of each of the cultures in the collection and refreeze viable material in the liquid nitrogen freezers. Previously most samples had been stored in an ultralow freezer, which can lead to deterioration of viability. A third goal is to cryopreserve the remaining five persent of the collection for which cryopreservation had never been attempted. The final goal of the project is to characterize the strains using ribosomal RNA genes in order to provide an estimate of the true phylogenetic diversity of the collection. This latter goal involves sequencing small subunit, large subunit, and the internal transcribed spacer region of the ribosomal RNA using Oxford Nanopore Technology for strains in which this data is lacking. Successfully completed, this project will secure this unique reference collection and will enhance infrastructure for research on chytrid fungi at the University of Michigan and other institutions.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.