NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: How spatial and temporal variation in environment and soil fungal diversity shapes plant phenotypes

该行动资助了2021财年的NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，即调查基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训，以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。温带森林中的大多数植物依靠与土壤真菌（称为丛枝菌根，AMF）的相互作用来获得生长和生存所需的重要资源。到目前为止，对这些相互作用的科学理解仅限于相对短期的研究，但随着方法学的新进展，该领域现在准备利用从数十年至数百年历史的博物馆（植物标本馆）标本中提取的有关这些关系的信息。在这个项目中，研究员将使用博物馆标本，结合新的实地采样，以1）确定植物-真菌相互作用的大空间和时间模式; 2）将这些模式与全球变化的驱动因素联系起来; 3）研究这些关系如何影响与整体表现相关的重要植物性状。这项工作的结果将提高我们对全球变化如何影响这些关键关系的理解，为博物馆提供最佳收藏实践的信息，并导致在博物馆和传统课堂环境中发展重要的教育外展活动。这位研究员将对来自东部地区的各种延龄草物种的历史植物标本和新收集的野外标本进行菌根基因组测序。北美然后，该研究员将使用分层贝叶斯建模方法来评估气候、地理分布和化感入侵者的存在（即，大蒜芥）影响AMF群落组成，并因此，AMF组成如何影响重要的植物性状，如叶面积和叶片氮含量。这项工作产生的更广泛的影响包括与博物馆教育工作者的合作，以及强调博物馆收藏的重要性。该研究员还将编写针对课堂和学术环境的教育宣传材料。这项研究将为该研究员提供新的研究合作以及植物标本馆方法学、高通量基因测序、入侵物种建模和科学交流方面的培训。该奖项反映了NSF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 action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. The majority of plants in temperate forests rely on interactions with soil fungi (called arbuscular mycorrhizae, AMF) to acquire important resources necessary for growth and survival. Scientific understanding of these interactions has so far been limited to relatively short-term studies, but with new advances in methodology, the field is now poised to leverage information about these relationships extracted from decades- to centuries-old museum (herbarium) specimens. In this project, the fellow will use museum specimens, combined with new field sampling, to 1) identify large spatial and temporal patterns in plant-fungi interactions; 2) link these patterns to drivers of global change; and 3) investigate how these relationships affect important plant traits linked to overall performance. Results from this work will improve our understanding of how global change affects these critical relationships, inform museums about best collection practices, and lead to the development of important educational outreach in both museum and traditional classroom settings.To complete this work, the fellow will sequence mycorrhizal genomes from a combination of historical herbarium samples and newly collected field specimens of various Trillium species from across eastern North America. The fellow will then use hierarchical Bayesian modeling approaches to assess how climate, geographic distribution, and presence of allelopathic invaders (i.e., garlic mustard) affect AMF community composition and, consequently, how AMF composition affects important plant traits such as leaf area and foliar nitrogen content. Broader impacts resulting from this work include collaboration with museum educators and highlighting the importance of museum collections. The fellow will also develop educational outreach materials targeted for classroom and academic settings. This research will provide the fellow with new research collaborations as well as training in herbarium methodology, high-throughput genetic sequencing, invasive species modeling, and scientific communication.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.