SGER: Preserving a national resource- the biotic diversity in the University of Miami marine yeast collection

迈阿密大学拥有世界上最大的海洋酵母菌收藏（约2500种）。酵母在微生物食物循环中作为有机材料到可食用微生物蛋白质的转化器是生态上重要的，并且它们作为800亿美元/年的工业的基础是经济上重要的。已知的酵母菌在遗传学上是多样的，包括大约20个目、120个属和1200个种，然而在自然界中仅发现了约1%的酵母菌。UM的收藏在其起源上是独一无二的，该收藏被国际公认为为现代分子系统学的基础。很大一部分的收集仍然未经研究，并包含未描述的菌株，种和属的酵母。整个收集代表了未来学术研究和工业/临床开发的重要种质来源。这些收藏品有丢失的危险。这项SGER资金申请将暂时支持将菌株和相关生态，表型和分子数据转移到两个最重要的国家和国际收藏所所需的人员。已与伊利诺伊州NRRL/美国农业部皮奥里亚和荷兰乌得勒支的Schimmelcultures中心作出安排，以维护收藏品。这两个机构将向科学、工业和医学界提供菌株和数据。这些收藏品代表了在收集和广泛研究方面的大量投入，这些研究产生了重大的科学贡献，而这些贡献反过来又催生了国际社会发表的第二次调查。因此，必须保存收藏品;丢弃收藏品并不符合科学的最佳利益。该项目的一个更广泛的影响是保存了这一独特的材料，这对科学界具有广泛的兴趣和潜在的重要性。

The University of Miami maintains the world's largest collection (~2500 stains) of marine yeasts. Yeasts are ecologically important in the microbial food loop as converters of organic material to edible microbial protein and they are economically important as the basis of 80bn dollar/yr industries. The yeasts, which are known, are phylogenetically diverse encompassing approximately 20 Orders, 120 Genera and 1200 species, however only ~1% of the yeasts in nature have been discovered. The UM collection is unique in its origin and the collection is internationally recognized as having provided a basis for modern molecular systematics. A significant portion of the collection remains unstudied and contains undescribed strains, species and genera of yeasts. The collection in its entirety represents an important source of germplasm for future academic investigations and industrial/clinical exploitation. The collection is in imminent danger of being lost. This SGER funding request will temporarily support personnel needed to transfer the strains and the associated ecological, phenotypic and molecular data to the two most prominent national and international collections. Arrangements have been made with NRRL/USDA Peoria, Ill and the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures, Utrecht, The Netherlands to maintain the collection. The two institutions would provide the scientific, industrial and medical communities with access to the strains and data. The collection represents a large investment in ship time for collections and for the extensive research that has resulted in significant scientific contributions, which, in turn, have spawned secondary published investigations by the international community. Consequently, the collection must be preserved; discarding the collection is not in the best interest of science. A broader impact of this project is the preservation of this unique material that is of wide interest and potential importance to the scientific community.