Research Coordination Networks in Biological Sciences: A Phylogeny for Kingdom Fungi

0090301 Blackwell，Spatafora，Taylor真菌学家很早就接受了分子生物遗传学，一些用于真菌的技术已经被证明在其他生物中同样有用，包括植物，如核核糖体内部转录间隔区（ITS）区域。在过去的十年中，在构建真菌的单一系统发育分类方面取得了很大进展，但目前的数据集仅依赖于800个左右真菌分类群的DNA序列，估计有80，000种真菌，或约1%的代表性。此外，一些真菌学家认为，可能有超过一百万种真菌仍然需要描述，特别是来自热带和世界其他地区的微生物和真菌多样性调查不足。该研究协调网络（RCN）奖将促进该领域现有工作者之间的扩大互动，并有助于吸引新的研究人员参与这项工作，以构建真菌王国的系统发育，从而促进发现，鉴定和纳入所有四个主要真菌门，壶菌纲，接合菌纲，担子菌纲，和子囊菌（及其无性和地衣化的亲属）。 一个非排他性的，性别（10名女性，31名参与者）和年龄（27-80岁）不同的真菌学家小组将创建研究和教育网络，以实现三个目标：（1）促进真菌遗传学;（2）提供真菌鉴定辅助工具;（3）为真菌学家和教师提供遗传学和教育材料。参与者将在五年的资助中每年至少举行两次会议，以开发一套用于系统发育分析的范例分类群，选择用于研究的形态和分子特征，讨论适合这些特征的分析方法，促进合作和协作以收集和验证大型数据集（包括与FungalNet联盟的欧洲同事），并协调教育活动。目前正在努力使更多的博士后助理，研究生和本科生进入企业，沿着外国同事。将通过电子手段和通过公众进入为区域网络活动建立的网站来实现快速交流。真菌的系统发育研究将有利于许多领域，如生物医学和制药研究，动物和植物病理学，食品科学，生物勘探，环境分析和监测。

0090301Blackwell, Spatafora, Taylor Mycologists embraced molecular phylogenetics early, and some of the techniques pioneered for use with fungi have proved equally useful in other organisms, including plants, such as the nuclear ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) regions. During the last decade great progress has been made toward constructing a single phylogenetic classification of fungi, but the current data sets rely upon DNA sequences from only 800 or so fungal taxa, out of an estimated 80,000 described species of fungi, or about 1% representation. Furthermore, some mycologists have argued that there may be over a million species of fungi still to describe, especially from tropical and other regions of the world poorly surveyed for microbial and fungal diversity. This Research Coordination Network (RCN) award will facilitate expanded interactions among current workers in the field and help to attract new researchers to the effort, to construct a phylogeny of the Kingdom Fungi, in turn to facilitate the discovery, identification, and incorporation into a taxonomic framework of novel fungal taxa across all four major phyla of fungi, Chytridiomycetes, Zygomycetes, Basidiomycetes, and Ascomycetes (and their asexual and lichenized relatives). A non-exclusive, gender (10 women of 31 named participants) and age (27-80 years) diverse group of mycologists will create the research and education network, to execute three goals: (1) promote fungal phylogenetics; (2) make available identification aids for fungi; and (3) provide a phylogeny and educational materials to mycologists and teachers. Participants will meet at least twice a year in each of the five years of funding to develop a set of exemplar taxa for phylogenetic analysis, choose morphological and molecular characters for study, discuss analytical methods appropriate to these characters, foster cooperation and collaboration for collection and vouchering of large data sets (including with European colleagues in the FungalNet consortium), and coordinate educational initiatives. Efforts are underway to bring increased numbers of postdoctoral associates, graduate students, and undergraduates into the enterprise, along with foreign colleagues. Rapid communication will be accomplished by electronic means and through public access to a web site established for the RCN activity. Phylogenetic research on fungi will benefit numerous fields like biomedical and pharmaceutical research, animal and plant pathology, food science, bioprospecting, and environmental analysis and monitoring.