Linking structure to function in plant-fungal symbioses

许多植物与丛枝菌根真菌(AMF)形成共生体，AMF增加了对土壤中磷等矿质养分的获取。最近，监督小组发现，植物也经常与毛霉菌“细根内生菌”(MFRE)形成共生体，这些共生体可能在对环境变化的响应以及在转移有机氮和矿质磷的能力方面与AMF不同。然而，植物-MFRE共生的许多生物学机制仍有待建立。特别是，我们还不知道这种联系的分布和功能意义如何受到环境变化的影响，例如氮素的有效性，或者温度和二氧化碳的变化。该项目将解决这一基本知识差距，将实地研究与基于实验室的方法相结合，包括同位素示踪、测序和成像技术。

Many plants form symbioses with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)which increase access to soil mineral nutrients such as phosphorus.Recently, the supervisory team has shown that plants also frequentlyform symbioses with Mucoromycotina "fine root endophytes" (MFRE),and that these associations may be distinct from those with AMF intheir responsiveness to environmental change and in their ability totransfer organic nitrogen alongside mineral phosphorus. However,much of the biology of the plant-MFRE symbiosis remains to beestablished. In particular, we do not yet know how the distribution andfunctional significance of this association is affected by environmentalchange, such as nitrogen availability, or by changes in temperatureand CO2. This project will address this fundamental knowledge gap,combining field studies with laboratory-based methodologies includingisotope tracer, sequencing and imaging techniques