Collaborative Research: Testing the Drivers and Scale-dependency of Plant-fungal Bacterial Community Co-assembly Across the Arctic

摘要北极植被正在迅速变化，以响应大范围的北极变暖。该提案的研究人员认为，只有通过探索植物、土壤微生物和土壤真菌群落如何相互作用和共同进化，我们才能真正了解植被在未来如何变化。利用在北极地区收集的3500多个土壤样本，以及同一地点的环境和植物数据，研究人员将采用新的遗传和统计技术来了解复杂的植物-微生物-真菌关系。虽然这项工作解决了一些基本的生态问题，但它也将为决定植被在不久的将来如何变化的控制提供见解。新墨西哥大学是一所经过认证的西班牙裔服务机构，在1600名生物学专业的本科生中，超过30%是西班牙裔。Taylor和Takacs-Vesbach将为这些和其他代表性不足的学生提供项目相关的研究经验。Taylor和Takacs-Vesbach目前在生物系的三个STEM项目中指导学生。新墨西哥大学少数族裔研究职业（MARC）项目主任提供一封支持信，承诺他将帮助该项目招募MARC项目学者进行微生物组方法培训。该提案包括在费尔班克斯的阿拉斯加大学培训一名女性博士后科学家。研究人员提出了一系列假设，重点关注五个北极生物群系中群落聚集的生态驱动因素（扩散、环境过滤、竞争、促进、生态位划分、中性过程）。他们将使用沿两个纬度样带收集的3500多个土壤样本，每个纬度样带都包括所有五个北极生物气候亚带和从北向南绵延1700公里。利用他们广泛的采样和已经掌握的关于土壤真菌和细菌群落组成的下一代测序数据，结合同一地点的植物群落数据（将通过有限的植物系统发育标记测序来增强），研究人员试图在分层空间和生态尺度上检查三个王国中每个王国的群落组装的基本模式。

Proposed Award AbstractArctic vegetation is rapidly changing in response to broad-scale Arctic warming. The investigators of this proposal argue that only by exploring how plants, soil microbes, and soil fungal communities interact and evolve together can we truly understand how vegetation may change in the future. Using over 3500 soil samples that have been collected across the arctic, along with environmental and plant data at the same sites, the investigators will employ new genetic and statistical techniques to understand the complex plant-microbe-fungal relations. While the work tackles a number of basic ecological questions, it will also provide insights into the controls determining how vegetation may change in the near future.The University of New Mexico is a certified Hispanic Serving Institution and of the 1600 undergraduate Biology majors, over 30% are Hispanic. Taylor and Takacs-Vesbach will provide project related research experience to these and other under-represented students. Taylor and Takacs-Vesbach are currently mentor students through three STEM programs based in the Biology department. A letter of support is provided by the Director of the UNM Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program, which commits him to helping the program recruit MARC Program Scholars for training in microbiome methods. The proposal includes for the training of a female post-doctoral scientist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.The investigators pose a series of hypotheses that focus on the ecological drivers of community assembly (dispersal, environmental filtering, competition, facilitation, niche partitioning, neutral processes) across five Arctic biomes. They will use over 3500 soil samples that have been collected along two latitudinal transects, each of which includes all five Arctic bioclimatic subzones and
spans 1700 kilometers north to south. Using their extensive sampling and next-generation-sequencing-derived data on community composition of soil fungi and bacteria that are already in hand, combined with data on plant communities at the same sites (which will be augmented with limited sequencing of plant phylogenetic markers), the investigators seek to examine the fundamental patterns of community assembly in each of the three Kingdoms at hierarchical spatial and ecological scales.