Collaborative Research: IntBio: Defining the mechanisms and consequences of mutualism reorganization in the Anthropocene.

没有有机体生活在孤立的环境中。相反，生命是有机体和环境之间有益且代价高昂的相互作用的网络。然而，人们对这些联系将如何随着全球变化而变化知之甚少。到21世纪末，气候变化将提高年平均气温，改变降水模式。与此同时，入侵物种将覆盖至少17%的地球陆地表面，包括北美大部分地区。植物与地下微生物的联系是地球上最广泛的互惠关系之一。这些互惠关系对全球变化也特别敏感。然而，植物-真菌互作如何承受和适应新环境的潜在机制仍然不清楚。因此，关键问题仍然是：互惠合作伙伴将如何重组并影响未来互惠合作的功能？回答这个问题需要跨规模和系统的综合、多学科研究。这项工作将通过跟踪本地植物及其有益和致病的真菌对入侵植物洋葱(大蒜芥菜)的有机、生理、种群和社区反应来产生这些协同效应。该项目将通过为来自不同背景的本科生提供综合研究和培训体验，对下一代STEM劳动力产生教育影响。这个IntBio项目建立在外来植物入侵的长期实验基础上，以解决四个目标。I：确定丛枝菌根(AM)和与本地植物物种相关的病原真菌群落的长期模式，以及真菌群落如何因入侵而重组。II：确定植物-AM真菌互惠关系的重组如何影响植物生理，包括固碳和氮吸收。III：确定植物-AM真菌互惠关系的重组和/或土壤养分的有效性在多大程度上改变植物的生长、存活和繁殖。通过实验解决这些目标将允许IV：整合前三个目标的结果，从互惠共生重组到植物生理学，再到植物种群和社区人口学。这项研究是跨不同尺度(空间、时间、生物组织水平)进行的。它将产生新的见解，这些见解将广泛适用于在其他全球变化情景下可能发生的互利重组。这项研究以“光合作用最小成本理论”为基础。最重要的预测是，如果地下共生重组使植物在碳利用方面获得养分的成本更高，那么将观察到植物生理上的重大变化。这个项目将是第一个探索围绕人类世相互作用重组的综合的、未经检验的和潜在的变革性想法。这个团队在德克萨斯理工大学和田纳西大学诺克斯维尔分校之间架起了桥梁，德克萨斯理工大学是一所西班牙裔服务机构，田纳西大学诺克斯维尔分校为来自阿巴拉契亚的学生提供服务。来自西班牙裔或阿巴拉契亚家庭的本科生共享着与大学成功相关的社会文化、经济和学术障碍的共同网络。培训部分旨在通过综合研究丰富本科生的经验，并通过经济、指导和培训支持以及为学生和他们的家庭提供机会来提高第一代学生的成功。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。

No organism lives in isolation. Instead, life is a web of beneficial and costly interactions among organisms and the environment. Yet little is known about how these connections will shift with global change. By the end of the 21st century, climate change will increase mean annual temperatures and shift precipitation patterns. At the same time, invasive species will cover at least 17% of Earth’s land surface, including most of North America. Plant associations with microorganisms belowground are one of the most widespread mutualisms on the planet. These mutualisms are also particularly sensitive to global change. However, the mechanisms underlying how plant-fungal mutualisms will withstand and adjust to new environments are still unclear. Thus, the key question remains: How will mutualistic partners reorganize and affect mutualism function in the future? Answering this question requires integrative, multi-disciplinary research across scales and systems. This work will create these synergies by tracking organismal, physiological, population, and community responses of native plants and their beneficial and disease-causing fungi to an invasive plant, Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard). The project will have educational impact for a next-generation STEM workforce by providing integrative research and training experiences for undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds. This IntBio project builds on a long-term experiment of exotic plant invasion to address four AIMS. I: Determine long-term patterns of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and pathogenic fungal communities associated with native plant species and how fungal communities are reorganized by invasion. II: Determine how reorganization of plant-AM fungal mutualisms affects plant physiology including carbon fixation and nitrogen uptake. III: Determine the extent to which reorganization of plant-AM fungal mutualisms and/or soil nutrient availability alter plant growth, survival and reproduction. Experimentally addressing these aims will allow IV: Integration of the results from the first three AIMs to scale from mutualism reorganization to plant physiology, to plant population and community demography. The research is integrated across different scales (spatial, temporal, levels of biological organization). It will generate novel insights that will be broadly generalizable to mutualism reorganization that is likely occurring under in other global change scenarios. This research is grounded in “photosynthetic least cost theory.” The overarching prediction is that if belowground mutualism reorganization makes nutrient acquisition more costly for the plant in terms of its carbon use, then significant shifts in plant physiology will be observed. This project will be the first to explore integrative, untested, and potentially transformative ideas surrounding the reorganization of mutualistic interactions in the Anthropocene. This team bridges Texas Tech University, a Hispanic Serving Institution, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which serves students from Appalachia. Undergraduate students from Hispanic or Appalachian families share a common web of socio-cultural, financial, and academic barriers related to success in college. The training component aims both to enrich undergraduate students’ experiences through integrative research and to enhance such 1st generation students’ success through financial, mentoring and training support, and opportunities for students and their families.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.