EAGER: Quantifying the effects of a fungus-mediated termite and bark beetle interaction on wood decomposition.

森林的健康、保护和管理依赖于预测树木死亡和分解速度的准确模型。目前，这样的模型假设枯木腐烂的速度主要是温度、树木类型和有效水分的函数。最近的证据表明，消耗木材的分解生物在决定木材腐烂速度方面可能与这些环境因素一样重要。在暴发期间，森林中的树皮甲虫侵扰会产生大量的枯木。在树皮甲虫流行期间，白蚁在它们赖以生存的枯树内和周围产生生物热点。这反过来又会影响后续分解生物的丰富性和多样性。来自美国东南部森林的初步发现表明，树皮甲虫携带的真菌增加了白蚁消耗含有这些真菌的木材的速度。这个迫切的项目将利用紧张的实地研究来确定树皮甲虫、真菌和白蚁之间的相互作用是否在北美和南美洲的其他森林中普遍存在。这一发现可能有助于解决一个迫切需要了解的问题，即为什么森林中的死木通常会以比预期更不同的速度根据温度进行分解。该项目将包括本科生和研究生的培训机会。作为该项目的一部分，将在密西西比昆虫博物馆建造一个永久的白蚁展览，项目结果将通过一个流行的社交媒体网页传播。该项目的目标是通过实验量化新发现的树皮甲虫和地下白蚁之间的真菌相互作用对广泛的针叶林(热带、亚热带和干旱)木材分解率的重要性，这些针叶林含有持续的树皮甲虫流行和三个不同水平的地下白蚁丰度和多样性。将建立三个现场，每个现场都有一个实验，控制真菌的存在/不存在，然后量化分解者群落的组成和木材腐烂速度的差异。气象数据(温度、降水量)、白蚁和其他伐木昆虫丰富度和多样性、真菌群落数据、木材和土壤异养呼吸数据以及木材分解数据都是我们在每个站点收集的。通过这种方式，这项研究将确定这种生物相互作用在调节各种气候带的木材分解中的相对重要性。目前，分解等生态系统过程在模型中被视为黑匣子，很少关注分解者之间的相互作用。最近发现的两个生态系统工程师(树皮甲虫和白蚁)之间的联系可能是许多森林生态系统碳通量的重要驱动因素，因此可能对未来用于量化和模拟木材分解速率的概念框架产生重大影响。

The health, conservation and management of forests depends on accurate models predicting the rate at which trees die and decompose. Currently, such models assume the rate at which dead wood decomposes is primarily a function of the temperature, tree type and available moisture. Recent evidence suggests that wood-consuming decomposer organisms may be nearly as important in determining the rate of wood decay as these environmental factors. Bark beetle infestations in forests generate massive amounts of dead wood during outbreaks. During bark beetle epidemics, termites create biological hotspots in and around the dead trees in which they feed. This, in turn, influences the abundance and diversity of subsequent decomposer organisms. Preliminary findings from a forest in in the Southeastern USA indicate that fungi carried to trees by bark beetles increase the rate at which termites consume wood containing these fungi. This EAGER project will use intense field studies to determine whether the interaction between bark beetles, fungi and termites is widespread in other forests in North and South America. This discovery may help solve a critical need to understand why dead wood in forests often decomposes at more variable rates than expected based on temperature. The project will include training opportunities at the undergraduate and graduate levels. As part of the project, a permanent termite display will be constructed at the Mississippi Entomological Museum, and project findings will be disseminated via a popular social media webpage.The objective of this project is to experimentally quantify the importance of this newly-discovered fungus-mediated interaction between bark beetles and subterranean termites on wood decomposition rates in a wide array of coniferous forests (tropical, subtropical, and arid) that contain ongoing bark beetle epidemics and three distinct levels of subterranean termite abundance and diversity. Three field sites will be established, each with an experiment that manipulates presence/absence of the fungus and subsequently quantifies differences in composition of the decomposer communities and rate of wood decay. Meteorological data (temperature, precipitation), termite and other woodboring insect abundance and diversity, fungal community data, wood and soil heterotrophic respiration data, and wood decomposition data we be collected at each site. In this way, this study will determine the relative importance of this biological interaction in mediating wood decomposition across a variety of climactic zones. Ecosystem processes such as decomposition are currently treated as a black box in models, with little focus on interactions among decomposers. The recently discovered link between two ecosystem engineers (bark beetles and termites) may be a significant driver of carbon fluxes in many forest ecosystems, and therefore may have significant impact on the future conceptual frameworks employed to quantify and model wood decomposition rates.