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

该项目将从一组被称为壶菌的真菌中获得约450种活的濒危真菌菌株。 该系列是由玛莎鲍威尔博士和彼得莱彻博士在亚拉巴马大学（UA）在过去的42年。它作为生物材料，支持了100多篇关于壶菌的科学论文，并含有任何其他收藏中未知的独特菌株。 壶菌是一个研究很少的群体，需要独特的条件来隔离和维持，并且该群体的大部分已知多样性都在这个集合中。 虽然这些微小的真菌以游动孢子（游动孢子）繁殖，但它们存在于土壤以及淡水和盐水沃茨中;它们作为寄生虫和独特物质（如花粉、毛发和昆虫外骨骼）的分解者，发挥着重要的生态作用。 UA壶菌的收集将与先前从缅因州大学获得的收集相结合，成为一个联合收集，称为密歇根大学（CZEUM）的游动孢子真真菌收集。正在开发CZEUM收集，以作为壶菌多样性的储存库，支持全球科学界对壶菌的研究。该项目有四个主要目标。第一个目标是完成将UA壶菌收集物物理转移到密歇根大学研究博物馆综合体的低温保存设施，在那里它将被储存在-193摄氏度的液氮蒸气中。 第二个目标是检测收集的每种培养物的活力，并在液氮冷冻机中重新冷冻活菌材料。 以前，大多数样品都储存在超低温冰箱中，这可能导致活力下降。 第三个目标是冷冻保存从未尝试过冷冻保存的剩余百分之五的收藏品。 该项目的最终目标是使用核糖体RNA基因来表征菌株，以提供对该集合的真实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该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。 成功完成后，该项目将确保这一独特的参考收集，并将加强密歇根大学和其他机构的壶菌研究基础设施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

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.