Illuminating the ecology of marine Fungi via quantitative stable isotope probing

拟议工作的总体研究目标是量化真菌在海洋碳循环中的作用，假设真菌在海洋食物网中起着关键但尚未受限制的作用。真菌在世界各地的海洋中无处不在，通过它们的新陈代谢，它们被假设有助于控制在全球范围内最终被掩埋和隔离在海底的有机物的数量。然而，未栽培真菌的巨大多样性尚未与海洋碳循环直接联系起来。该项目将通过优化和实施最先进的新方法qSIP来克服这一知识差距，首次量化海洋环境中特定真菌分类群的碳同化。因此，这项研究将框定海洋真菌在海洋生态系统中的重要性。定量实验结果将代表一个显著的进步，目前对海洋真菌的理解，主要是基于相关的观测推断。这项研究还将对各个学科产生变革性的影响，因为它可以被土壤科学领域的科学家应用于量化真菌多样性在陆地碳循环中的作用，陆地碳循环控制着土壤中储存的碳量，影响大气二氧化碳浓度和气候。通过将真菌遗传学和性状与其在海洋生态系统中的功能联系起来，该项目将超越传统的方法来研究海洋真菌。新的真菌qSIP方法将彻底改变真菌研究的传统方法，阐明海洋真菌在海底碳储存中的作用，并为其在海洋碳循环中的作用提供第一个定量约束。

The overarching research aim of the proposed work is to quantify the role of Fungi in the marine carbon cycle that are hypothesized to play a critical, but as-of-yet unconstrained, role in marine food webs. Fungi are ubiquitous throughout the world’s oceans and through their metabolism they are hypothesized to help control how much organic matter is ultimately buried and sequestered in the seafloor on a global scale. However, the immense diversity of uncultivated Fungi has not yet been directly linked with the marine carbon cycle. This project will overcome this knowledge gap by optimizing and implementing a state-of-the-art new method, qSIP, to quantify for the first time the carbon assimilation of specific fungal taxa in the marine environment. This research will thereby frame the importance of marine Fungi in marine ecosystems. The quantitative experimental results will represent a significant advance over the current understanding of marine Fungi that is based mostly on correlative observational inferences. The research will furthermore have a transformative impact across disciplines because it can be applied by scientists in the field of soil science to quantify the role fungal diversity in terrestrial carbon cycling that controls how much carbon is stored in soils, impacting atmospheric CO2 concentrations and climate. By linking fungal genetics and traits with their function in marine ecosystems, the project will go beyond conventional approaches to study marine Fungi. The new qSIP method for Fungi will revolutionize conventional approaches in fungal research, illuminate the role of marine Fungi on seafloor carbon storage, and provide the first quantitative constraints on their role in the marine carbon cycle.