Collaborative Proposal: MRA: Macroecology of microorganisms: Scaling fungal biodiversity from soil cores to the North American continent

合作提案：MRA：微生物宏观生态学：将真菌生物多样性从土壤核心扩展到北美大陆

• 批准号: 2244711
• 负责人: Kai Zhu
• 金额: $ 34.06万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2244711&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Proposal; MRA; Macroecology; microorganisms

Soil fungi are mostly invisible to the naked eye, but they provide a wide range of ecosystem functions: as decomposers, they break down complex organic materials, and as plant symbiotic partners, they help plants scavenge for scarce nutrients that improve growth. Because both these roles involve a transfer of critical elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, these fungi play an essential part in global nutrient budgets. Soil fungi can also regulate ecosystems by acting as pathogens of plants and animals. In some cases, pathogenic fungi can have detrimental impacts such as crop disease outbreaks, but more commonly, they promote biodiversity on a global scale by preventing any single species from dominating the ecosystem. Despite their role in regulating these critical ecosystem functions, little is known about what determines the structure of fungal communities across the North American continent, and what consequences future changes in fungal community structure may have. One of the main barriers to this research goal is the lack of a large-scale, systematic effort to sample and identify soil fungi. This research project will overcome this barrier by quantifying patterns of soil fungal diversity using two new, next-generation DNA sequencing datasets that characterize soil fungal communities across the North American continent: the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and the Dimensions of Biodiversity project on North American soil fungi (DoB-FUN). By leveraging state-of-the-art modeling techniques to consider not only how soil fungi change with the environment, but how those changes may depend on their neighboring plant communities, this project will transform our understanding of soil microbial diversity.By integrating two of the most extensive datasets on soil fungal communities with nearly identical sampling design, molecular methods, and spatial range, the investigators will have an unprecedented opportunity to answer two key questions about the fundamental factors that structure microbial geographic ranges and biodiversity. (1) What are the key environmental variables, and (2) how are they influenced by the interactions and associations between fungi and plants? The researchers will leverage this information with a novel three-pronged approach to modeling biodiversity at the community-level: top-down, bottom-up, and integrated methods. This approach overcomes a significant limitation in previous studies, which fail to account for the importance of species interactions in controlling microbial distributions. The novel data and models will help solve critical challenges in scaling predictions from microorganisms to macrosystems. In the context of rapid environmental change, this project can make some of the first robust predictions of change and uncertainty in microbial diversity at the continental scale. While preliminary results have already highlighted the possibility for substantial future changes in fungal community composition and geographic distribution, the synthesis of top-down, bottom-up, and integrated modeling approaches will lead to significant advances in our understanding of fungal biogeography and the ability to forecast the response of fungi to future environmental stressors.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.

土壤真菌大多是肉眼看不到的，但它们提供了广泛的生态系统功能：作为分解者，它们分解复杂的有机物质，作为植物共生伙伴，它们帮助植物吸收稀缺的营养物质，促进生长。由于这两种作用都涉及碳、氮和磷等关键元素的转移，因此这些真菌在全球营养预算中发挥着重要作用。土壤真菌还可以作为植物和动物的病原体来调节生态系统。在某些情况下，病原真菌可能会产生有害影响，如作物病害爆发，但更常见的是，它们通过防止任何单一物种主宰生态系统来促进全球范围内的生物多样性。尽管它们在调节这些关键的生态系统功能中发挥着重要作用，但人们对北美大陆真菌群落结构的决定因素以及真菌群落结构未来变化可能产生的后果知之甚少。实现这一研究目标的主要障碍之一是缺乏大规模、系统的土壤真菌采样和鉴定工作。该研究项目将通过使用两个新的下一代DNA测序数据集来量化土壤真菌多样性的模式来克服这一障碍，这两个数据集描述了整个北美大陆的土壤真菌群落：国家生态观测站网络（氖）和北美土壤真菌生物多样性项目（DoB-FUN）。通过利用最先进的建模技术，不仅考虑土壤真菌如何随环境变化，而且考虑这些变化如何取决于其邻近的植物群落，该项目将改变我们对土壤微生物多样性的理解。通过整合两个最广泛的土壤真菌群落数据集，具有几乎相同的采样设计，分子方法和空间范围，研究人员将有一个前所未有的机会来回答两个关键问题，即构成微生物地理范围和生物多样性的基本因素。(1)关键的环境变量是什么？（2）它们如何受到真菌和植物之间的相互作用和关联的影响？研究人员将利用这些信息，采用一种新的三管齐下的方法来模拟社区层面的生物多样性：自上而下，自下而上和综合方法。这种方法克服了以往研究中的一个重要局限性，即未能考虑到种间相互作用在控制微生物分布中的重要性。新的数据和模型将有助于解决将预测从微生物扩展到宏观系统的关键挑战。在快速环境变化的背景下，该项目可以在大陆范围内对微生物多样性的变化和不确定性做出一些第一批可靠的预测。虽然初步结果已经强调了真菌群落组成和地理分布未来发生重大变化的可能性，但自上而下、自下而上、和综合建模方法将导致我们对真菌地理学的理解和预测真菌对未来环境压力的反应的能力的重大进步。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得的。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提供支持。

项目成果

Niche modelling predicts that soil fungi occupy a precarious climate in boreal forests

生态位模型预测土壤真菌在北方森林中占据不稳定的气候

• DOI: 10.1111/geb.13684
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Global Ecology and Biogeography
• 影响因子: 6.4
• 作者: Qin, Clara;Pellitier, Peter T.;Van Nuland, Michael E.;Peay, Kabir G.;Zhu, Kai
• 通讯作者: Zhu, Kai

Interannual climate variability has predominant effects on seedling survival in a temperate forest

年际气候变化对温带森林幼苗的存活有主要影响

• DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3643
• 期刊: Ecology
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Xu Zhichao;Johnson Daniel J.;Zhu Kai;Lin Fei;Ye Ji;Yuan Zuoqiang;Mao Zikun;Fang Shuai;Hao Zhanqing;Wang Xugao
• 通讯作者: Wang Xugao