Collaborative Research: The Zygomycetes Genealogy of Life (ZyGoLife)- the conundrum of Kingdom Fungi

真菌构成了地球上最成功的生命群体之一。它们生活在世界上大多数环境中，在那里它们发挥着多种功能(例如，营养循环、食物网的基础等)。它们是健康生态系统的核心。重要的是，真菌与所有其他形式的生命相互作用，包括植物、动物和细菌--从有益的到拮抗的。合菌科真菌是一个古老的类群，与菌界真菌相关的大多数形态和生态性状最早出现在这个类群中，但它们的进化史和生态关联性尚未很好地解决。该项目将重建真菌进化史上这一最早分支的系谱关系，解决植物与接合菌之间共生关系的起源，揭示复杂的身体计划如何在该群体中进化，阐明具有复杂和不同生活史的生物之间的交配遗传学机制，并开发基因组条形码，以便于识别未知的真菌。这项研究的成果将对许多科学学科和社会做出贡献。扩大和保持这些真菌的专业知识对生物学、人类健康和生产力以及安全食品生产至关重要。该项目包括培训下一代真菌学家，传播基础真菌生物学信息，开发教学资源，扩大生物数据库和网络资源，开发研究材料，包括供更广泛的科学界使用的菌株培养和基因组，以及扩大代表不足的群体对STEM学科的参与。对合菌基因组的初步分析支持这一假设，即该群是某些鞭毛真菌和它们特定的生活史之间的关键转换点，以及后来成为真核陆地真菌(肉质真菌，如蘑菇)的主要分支。由于合菌是最早展示子实体的陆地真菌，了解这些结构是如何进化的将为理解真菌中复杂的形态发生(如多细胞)的起源以及复杂生活史的进化提供基础。接合菌还表现出与植物(菌根)、动物(病原体)和细菌(内共生体)的多种生态关系。解决这些相互作用的系统起源将为阐明管理这些相互作用的分子和生化机制提供一个进化框架，并在这样做时，将对自然和管理的生态系统以及人类福祉的研究产生直接影响。这项研究还将完善分子环境采样技术，从而更准确地普查合菌生物多样性，特别是在土壤生态系统中。通过收集更多数量级的基因组规模的数据，并将其与生化、形态、亚细胞和化石数据层相结合，将阐明真菌生命谱系中这一难以捉摸的区域，并将为广泛的生物学研究提供基础。

Fungi comprise one of the most successful groups of life on Earth. They inhabit most of the world's environments, where they perform numerous functions (e.g., nutrient cycling, foundations of food webs, etc.) that are central to healthy ecosystems. Importantly, fungi interact with all other forms of life, including plants, animals and bacteria -- in associations that range from beneficial to antagonistic. Zygomycete fungi, the focus of this research project, are an ancient group in which most of the morphological and ecological traits associated with Kingdom Fungi first arose, but their evolutionary history and ecological associations have not yet been well resolved. This project will reconstruct the genealogical relationships of this earliest branch in fungal evolutionary history, resolve the origins of symbiotic relationships between plants and zygomycetes, reveal how complex body plans evolved in the group, elucidate mechanisms of mating genetics between organisms with complex and differing life cycles, and develop genomic barcodes to facilitate identification of unknown fungi. The results of this research will contribute to many scientific disciplines and to society. Expanding and maintaining expertise on these fungi is critical for the field of biology, human health and productivity, and safe food production. This project includes training of the next generation of mycologists, dissemination of information on basic fungal biology, development of teaching resources, expansion of biological database and web resources, development of research materials including strain cultures and genomes for the wider scientific community, and broadening of participation of underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines.Zygomycetes are filamentous fungi that lack flagella and that produce simple but defined reproductive structures. An initial analysis of zygomycete genomes support the hypothesis that the group is a pivotal transition point between certain flagellated Fungi and their specific life histories, and what became the dominant eukaryotic terrestrial clade of Fungi (the fleshy fungi, e.g., mushrooms). Because the zygomycetes are the first terrestrial fungi that exhibit fruiting bodies, understanding how these structures evolved will provide a basis for understanding the origins of complex morphogenesis (e.g., multicellularity) in the Fungi, as well as the evolution of complex life histories. Zygomycetes also display a diversity of ecological relationships with plants (mycorrhizae), animals (pathogens) and bacteria (endosymbionts). Resolving the phylogenetic origins of these interactions will provide an evolutionary framework for elucidating molecular and biochemical mechanisms that govern these interactions, and in doing so, will have direct impacts on research into natural and managed ecosystems and human welfare. This research will also refine molecular environmental sampling techniques, resulting in a more accurate census of zygomycete biodiversity, especially in soil ecosystems. By gathering orders of magnitude more genome-scale data and integrating it with biochemical, morphological, subcellular, and fossil data layers, this elusive region of the fungal genealogy of life will be illuminated and will provide a foundation for broad scale biological research.