NSF/GEO-NERC: Fungi in a Warmer World

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Fungi range from virulent pathogens to key nutrient recyclers in ecosystems. Understanding their role and global distribution has become vital to our response to changing environmental conditions. This has proven difficult because the necessary large-scale, long-term, global fungal community datasets do not exist. This project will identify and analyze small fungal remains (fungal microfossils) preserved in sediments from before, during, and after the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO), a gradual warming event that began 17 million years ago, to produce the needed data. Results will be used to build better models of past environmental changes and to predict how fungi will respond to changing climate conditions today. This international research project links small, rural universities with flagship research institutions through student research and tiered-mentoring opportunities, as well as outreach to primary school children with an engagement package that can be disseminated broadly, and the greater scientific community through workshops on this topic at scientific meetings.This project provides the first global data set of fungal biodiversity and ecosystem services during an interval of geologic time characterized by a gradual warming event. Analyses of this dataset will be used to test the following hypotheses: 1) Overall fungal diversity was higher during the MMCO; 2) MMCO fungal assemblages globally will show a greater species richness and abundance of forest-associated ascomycetes; and 3) Fungal diversity during the MMCO was greatest in areas of warm-unseasonal climates. Hypothesis testing utilizes three complementary research avenues: 1) identification of fossil fungi and fungal community assemblages from 11 localities in North America, South America, South Africa, the Arabian Sea, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Europe; 2) synthesis of global fungal records from the MMCO; and 3) reconstruction of global climate for the MMCO using statistically robust techniques and utilizing both the new data generated and existing data. In combination, these three research activities will provide the necessary data to understand fungal biodiversity and ecology in the context of a warmer world.This project is jointly funded by the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology Program, (NSG/GEO), the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and NERC. This is a project that is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (UKRI/NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget and the investigators associated with its own investigators and component of the work.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.