Integrating marine fungi into the structure and function of pelagic ecosystems

尽管自19世纪以来人们就知道海洋真菌的存在，但分子生态学工具的应用已经建立了对海洋真菌群落广泛分布和多样性的基础认识。近年来有证据表明浮游真菌在开阔水域生态系统中发挥着重要的功能作用。一些海洋浮游真菌是明显的腐养生物，通过细胞外酶利用高分子量的底物，而另一些是浮游植物的潜在寄生虫，特别是硅藻。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结构和功能的远洋海洋生态系统。由于在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。腐殖性是海洋浮游细菌的一种功能作用，目前尚不清楚真菌和细菌腐殖性是如何相互关联的。尽管真菌寄生海洋浮游植物是已知的，但浮游植物寄生的普遍性和重要性及其随时间和空间的变化在很大程度上仍然是推测。这个博士项目的目的是通过实验室、现场和基于建模的方法的综合和互补计划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