NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: How spatial and temporal variation in environment and soil fungal diversity shapes plant phenotypes

这一行动为NSF 2021财年生物学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，综合研究调查了支配基因组、环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则。该奖学金支持研究员的研究和培训，这些研究员将以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。温带森林中的大多数植物依靠与土壤真菌(称为丛枝菌根，AMF)的相互作用来获得生长和生存所必需的重要资源。到目前为止，对这些相互作用的科学理解仅限于相对短期的研究，但随着方法学的新进步，该领域现在准备利用从数十年至数百年的博物馆(植物标本)标本中提取的关于这些关系的信息。在这个项目中，研究员将使用博物馆标本，结合新的田间采样，1)确定植物-真菌相互作用中的大的空间和时间模式；2)将这些模式与全球变化的驱动因素联系起来；以及3)调查这些关系如何影响与整体表现相关的重要植物特征。这项工作的结果将提高我们对全球变化如何影响这些关键关系的理解，向博物馆提供关于最佳收藏实践的信息，并导致在博物馆和传统课堂环境中开展重要的教育推广活动。为了完成这项工作，该研究员将从北美东部各种延龄草物种的历史植物标本和新收集的野外标本中对菌根基因组进行测序。然后，该研究员将使用分层贝叶斯建模方法来评估气候、地理分布和化感作用入侵者(即大蒜芥菜)的存在如何影响AMF群落组成，从而评估AMF组成如何影响叶面积和叶片含氮量等重要植物性状。这项工作产生的更广泛的影响包括与博物馆教育工作者的合作和突出博物馆收藏品的重要性。该研究员还将开发针对课堂和学术环境的教育宣传材料。这项研究将为这位研究员提供新的研究合作以及在标本馆方法学、高通量基因测序、入侵物种建模和科学交流方面的培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. The majority of plants in temperate forests rely on interactions with soil fungi (called arbuscular mycorrhizae, AMF) to acquire important resources necessary for growth and survival. Scientific understanding of these interactions has so far been limited to relatively short-term studies, but with new advances in methodology, the field is now poised to leverage information about these relationships extracted from decades- to centuries-old museum (herbarium) specimens. In this project, the fellow will use museum specimens, combined with new field sampling, to 1) identify large spatial and temporal patterns in plant-fungi interactions; 2) link these patterns to drivers of global change; and 3) investigate how these relationships affect important plant traits linked to overall performance. Results from this work will improve our understanding of how global change affects these critical relationships, inform museums about best collection practices, and lead to the development of important educational outreach in both museum and traditional classroom settings.To complete this work, the fellow will sequence mycorrhizal genomes from a combination of historical herbarium samples and newly collected field specimens of various Trillium species from across eastern North America. The fellow will then use hierarchical Bayesian modeling approaches to assess how climate, geographic distribution, and presence of allelopathic invaders (i.e., garlic mustard) affect AMF community composition and, consequently, how AMF composition affects important plant traits such as leaf area and foliar nitrogen content. Broader impacts resulting from this work include collaboration with museum educators and highlighting the importance of museum collections. The fellow will also develop educational outreach materials targeted for classroom and academic settings. This research will provide the fellow with new research collaborations as well as training in herbarium methodology, high-throughput genetic sequencing, invasive species modeling, and scientific communication.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.