Functional Diversity in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbioses

大多数植物都与一组特殊的真菌一起进化，并依赖于这些真菌来帮助它们的生长、繁殖和生存。这些被称为菌根真菌，它们作为根系统的延伸，生活在根尖并延伸到土壤中。菌根真菌为植物提供了许多好处，包括改善营养和水分吸收，保护植物免受环境胁迫，如干旱、污染物和病原体的攻击。由于这些真菌对植物非常重要，科学家们花了大量时间探索利用菌根真菌来改善农作物和树木的生长和健康的方法。然而，很少有研究人员试图了解这些真菌在自然条件下是如何工作的。在了解菌根真菌的自然栖息地之前，我们不能指望成功地操纵它们用于我们的用途，无论我们是想要改善作物表现还是恢复退化的生态系统。在这种背景下，这项研究计划的目标是更好地了解菌根真菌之间存在的功能多样性，并确定决定它们在自然和受干扰的生态系统中的分布和丰度的因素。我们计划详细研究加拿大长期研究地点(老草地、阔叶林、混交林、针叶林和半干旱灌木/草地)中菌根真菌的分布和丰度。我们还将沿着环境梯度(特别是海拔梯度)研究这些真菌，以更好地了解决定它们分布和功能的因素。最后，这些真菌对土壤干扰很敏感，所以我们将研究它们如何对干扰做出反应，以及随着受干扰的生态系统的恢复，它们如何帮助植物生长。这项研究将提供关于菌根真菌在自然生态系统中的作用的有用信息，并将提供关于它们如何在管理的生态系统中被操纵的洞察。

The majority of plants have evolved with, and are dependent on, a specialized group of fungi to aid in their growth, reproduction, and survival. These are called mycorrhizal fungi, and they act as extensions of the root system, living in the root tips and extending out into the soil. Mycorrhizal fungi offer a number of benefits to the plant including improved nutrient and water uptake, protection from environmental stresses such as drought, contaminants, and attack from pathogens. Because these fungi are so important to plants, scientists have spent a lot of time exploring ways of using mycorrhizal fungi to improve the growth and health of crops and trees. However, few researchers have tried to understand how these fungi work under natural conditions. Until mycorrhizal fungi are understood in their natural habitat, we cannot expect to successfully manipulate them for our uses, whether we want to improve crop performance or restore a degraded ecosystem. In that vein, the objective of this research program is to better understand the functional diversity that exists among mycorrhizal fungi and to identify factors that determine their distribution and abundance in natural and disturbed ecosystems. We are planning to study, in detail, the distribution and abundance of mycorrhizal fungi in Long-Term Research Sites in Canada (an old-field meadow, a hardwood forest, a mixed forest, a conifer forest, and a semi-arid shrub/grassland). We will also study these fungi along environmental gradients (specifically elevation gradients) to better understand the factors that determine their distribution and functioning. Finally, these fungi are sensitive to soil disturbance, so we will study how they respond to disturbance, and how they help plants grow as disturbed ecosystems recover. This research will provide useful information on the roles of mycorrhizal fungi in natural ecosystems, and will provide insight on how they may then be manipulated in managed ecosystems.