Integrating marine fungi into the structure and function of pelagic ecosystems

尽管早在19世纪就已知海洋真菌的存在，但分子生态学工具的应用奠定了人们对海洋真菌群广泛分布和多样性的基础认识。最近的证据表明，浮游真菌(浮游真菌)在开放水域生态系统中发挥着重要的作用。一些海洋浮游真菌是明显的腐生生物，通过胞外酶利用高分子底物，而另一些是浮游植物，特别是硅藻的潜在寄生虫。一个新的和开放的研究问题是了解海洋浮游真菌如何适应更广泛的海洋生态系统的结构和功能。由于实验室和现场研究海洋真菌的方法的发展，这项研究是及时的。腐殖质是海洋浮游细菌的一个已经确立的功能角色，目前尚不清楚真菌和细菌腐殖性是如何相互联系的。尽管海洋浮游植物的真菌寄生是已知的，但浮游植物寄生的流行率和重要性以及随时间和空间的变化在很大程度上仍有待推测。该博士项目的目的是通过实验室、现场和基于模型的方法的综合和补充方案来解决这些知识差距

Even though marine fungi have been known to exist since the 19th century, the application of molecular ecology tools has established a foundational understanding of the widespread distribution and diversity of the ocean mycobiome. Recent evidence has indicated the functional roles fulfilled by planktonic fungi (mycoplankton) in open water ecosystems. Some marine mycoplankton are apparent saprotrophs that utilise high-molecular weight substrates via extracellular enzymes, whilst others are potential parasites of phytoplankton, particularly diatoms. A novel and open research question is to understand how marine mycoplankton fit within the wider structure and function of pelagic marine ecosystems. This research is timely because of the development of approaches to study marine fungi in the laboratory and in situ. Saprotrophy is an already well-established functional role of marine bacterioplankton and it is currently unknown how fungal and bacterial saprotrophy are interrelated. Even though fungal parasitism of marine phytoplankton is known, the prevalence and importance of phytoplankton parasitism and change through time and space remain largely speculated. This aim of this PhD project is to address these knowledge gaps through an integrated and complementary programme of laboratory, field and modelling based approaches