Illuminating the ecology of marine Fungi via quantitative stable isotope probing

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The overarching research aim of the proposed work is to quantify the role of Fungi in the marine carbon cycle that are hypothesized to play a critical, but as-of-yet unconstrained, role in marine food webs. Fungi are ubiquitous throughout the world’s oceans and through their metabolism they are hypothesized to help control how much organic matter is ultimately buried and sequestered in the seafloor on a global scale. However, the immense diversity of uncultivated Fungi has not yet been directly linked with the marine carbon cycle. This project will overcome this knowledge gap by optimizing and implementing a state-of-the-art new method, qSIP, to quantify for the first time the carbon assimilation of specific fungal taxa in the marine environment. This research will thereby frame the importance of marine Fungi in marine ecosystems. The quantitative experimental results will represent a significant advance over the current understanding of marine Fungi that is based mostly on correlative observational inferences. The research will furthermore have a transformative impact across disciplines because it can be applied by scientists in the field of soil science to quantify the role fungal diversity in terrestrial carbon cycling that controls how much carbon is stored in soils, impacting atmospheric CO2 concentrations and climate. By linking fungal genetics and traits with their function in marine ecosystems, the project will go beyond conventional approaches to study marine Fungi. The new qSIP method for Fungi will revolutionize conventional approaches in fungal research, illuminate the role of marine Fungi on seafloor carbon storage, and provide the first quantitative constraints on their role in the marine carbon cycle.