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

真菌是地球上最成功的生命体之一。它们栖息在世界上大多数环境中，在那里它们发挥着许多功能（例如，营养循环、食物网的基础等），这些功能对健康的生态系统至关重要。重要的是，真菌与包括植物、动物和细菌在内的所有其他形式的生命相互作用，其关系从有益到敌对都有。接合菌是本课题研究的重点，它是一个古老的类群，最早出现了与真菌界相关的大部分形态和生态特征，但其进化史和生态关系尚未得到很好的解决。该项目将重建真菌进化史上这一最早分支的谱系关系，解决植物与接合菌共生关系的起源，揭示复杂的身体计划如何在群体中进化，阐明具有复杂和不同生命周期的生物体之间的交配遗传机制，并开发基因组条形码以促进未知真菌的鉴定。这项研究的结果将对许多科学学科和社会作出贡献。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领域至关重要。该项目包括培养下一代真菌学家，传播基础真菌生物学信息，开发教学资源，扩展生物数据库和网络资源，为更广泛的科学界开发包括菌株培养和基因组在内的研究材料，以及扩大STEM学科中代表性不足群体的参与。接合菌是丝状真菌，没有鞭毛，产生简单但明确的生殖结构。对接合菌基因组的初步分析支持这样的假设，即该群体是某些鞭毛真菌与其特定生活史之间的关键过渡点，并成为真菌的主要真核陆生分支（肉质真菌，例如蘑菇）。因为接合菌是最早出现子实体的陆生真菌，了解这些结构是如何进化的，将为理解真菌中复杂形态发生（如多细胞）的起源以及复杂生命史的进化提供基础。接合菌还与植物（菌根）、动物（病原体）和细菌（内共生体）表现出多样性的生态关系。解决这些相互作用的系统发育起源将为阐明控制这些相互作用的分子和生化机制提供一个进化框架，这样做将对自然和管理生态系统和人类福利的研究产生直接影响。这项研究还将改进分子环境采样技术，从而更准确地统计接合菌的生物多样性，特别是在土壤生态系统中。通过收集数量级更多的基因组尺度数据，并将其与生化、形态、亚细胞和化石数据层相结合，真菌生命谱系这一难以捉摸的领域将得到阐明，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.