Collaborative Research: Diversity and evolution of fungal endophytes in native Hawaiian plants

在几乎所有健康的植物叶片中都居住着一个肉眼看不见的真菌群落。这些隐生共生体，被称为叶面真菌内生菌，跨越了数亿年的进化史，与植物适应性有关，被认为包含了大量未记载的物种和生化化合物。尽管它们的普遍性和多样性，但人们对为什么在不同的植物中发现不同的真菌内生菌种类知之甚少。夏威夷特有的濒危植物群为收集和描述一组独特的这些生物提供了机会，同时确定了环境、传播障碍和植物进化历史在多大程度上塑造了这些真菌共生体的多样性和在岛屿上的分布。PIs修正和佩里将利用DNA测序和培养技术的结合，从夏威夷特有植物和不同栖息地的广泛选择中对真菌叶面内生菌进行清查。夏威夷的真菌几乎完全没有记载，但毫无疑问，它们正在像夏威夷极度濒危的植物一样迅速消失。该项目将列举自然和农业系统中最普遍的跨界共生物种之一，同时也为未来的实验和潜在的天然产物发现保存生物材料。通过这个项目，Perry和Amend将对当地高中生、本科生和研究生进行真菌分类学和系统学、分子生态学和进化生物学方面的培训。

Inside nearly all healthy plant leaves reside a diverse community of fungi invisible to the naked eye. These cryptic symbionts, known as foliar fungal endophytes, span hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history, are linked to plant fitness and are thought to comprise a wealth of undocumented species and biochemical compounds. Despite their ubiquity and diversity, little is known about why different fungal endophyte species are found in different plants. Hawaii's endemic and imperiled flora provides an opportunity to collect and describe a unique set of these organisms, while determining the extent to which environment, barriers to dispersal and plant evolutionary history shape these fungal symbionts' diversity and distribution across islands. PIs Amend and Perry will inventory fungal foliar endophytes from a broad selection of Hawaii's endemic plants and diverse habitats using a combination of DNA sequencing and culturing techniques. Hawaii's fungi are almost entirely undocumented, yet are undoubtedly disappearing as quickly as Hawaii's critically endangered plants. This project will enumerate the species involved in one of the most pervasive cross-kingdom symbioses in natural and agricultural systems, while also preserving biological material for future experimentation and potential natural product discovery. Through this project, Perry and Amend will train local high school, undergraduate and graduate students in fungal taxonomy and systematics, molecular ecology and evolutionary biology.