ROA: Relationships Between Fungi and the Nutritional Content of Detritus for Leaf-shredding Invertebrates in Streams

在一般生态学的所有领域中，微生物生态学是最不被充分研究和了解的。这在水生微生物生态学中最为明显。近年来，由于微生物的基因工程，全国都需要更多地了解微生物生态学。阿拉巴马大学的苏伯克罗普博士建议研究水生微生物和无脊椎动物群落。拟议的研究旨在确定在不同溪流生境中定植树叶的真菌的种类组成对碎叶生境生长的影响程度。这些蒸汽中的优势真菌对叶片进行调节的动态将被确定，以确定每个物种在实验室中完全调节叶片所需的时间。来自不同溪流的粉碎机的生长、摄取、排放和呼吸的速度将被用来评估真菌物种的食物质量。将比较不同粉碎机分类群喂食食品品质高和低的真菌的能量学。真菌种类组成对粉碎机生长的影响将被考察在含有由不同真菌种类主导的真菌群落的溪流中定居的树叶。将确定叶子上存在的真菌种类，并评估这些叶子在饲料中的粉碎机性能。结果将与寄生在不同溪流中的真菌的食物质量有关。拟议的研究将提供一个比较数据基础，以了解在纯培养和自然微生物群落中不同真菌物种的粉碎机性能和饮食之间的关系，并应增加对这两类生物之间可能发生的相互作用范围的了解。

Microbial ecology, of all areas of general ecology, is the least well researched and understood. This is most obvious in aquatic microbial ecology. In recent years, because of genetic engineering of microbes, there is a national need to know more about microbial ecology. Dr. Suberkropp, of the University of Alabama, proposes to study aquatic microbial and invertebrate communities. The proposed studies are designed to determine the degree to which the species composition of fungi colonizing leaves in different stream habitats affects the growth of leaf-shredding habitats. The dynamics of leaf conditioning by the dominant fungi in these steams will be determined to establish the time required by each species to fully condition leaves in the laboratory. The rates of growth, ingestion, egestion and respiration of shredders from different streams fed diets of leaves that have been fully conditioned by pure cultures of these fungi will be used to estimate the food quality of fungal species. Energetics of different shredder taxa fed fungi of high and low food quality will be compared. The effect of fungal species composition on shredder growth will be examined for leaves colonized in streams containing fungal communities dominated by different fungal species. The fungal species present on leaves will be determined, and shredder performance on diets of these leaves will be evaluated. Results will be related to food quality of the fungi colonizing leaves in different streams. The studies proposed will provide a comparative data base on relationships between shredder performance and diets of different fungal species in pure culture and in natural microbial communities and should increase understanding of the range of interactions that can occur between these two groups of organisms.