An award has been made to Harvard University under the direction of Dr. Anne Pringle to study the symbiosis of fungi and woody plants. The grant will improve the doctoral dissertation research of Benjamin Wolfe. Ectomycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic associations on the surface of woody plant roots. This symbiosis benefits the plant by enhancing water and mineral absorption, and it provides the fungi with a source of nutrients from the plant. These symbioses have evolved multiple times throughout the mushroom forming fungi. However, ecological and genomic changes in the fungi in these symbioses remain poorly understood. This work will use the genus Amanita, a genus that includes many toxic species and includes both symbiotic and nonsymbiotic species of fungi. A molecular phylogeny of 200 Amanita species will be constructed to determine the number of times symbiosis has evolved in Amanita. To examine how the evolution of symbiosis affects resource acquisition, stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen will be measured for Amanita species. The structure of functional genes and estimates of genome size will be used to assess genomic changes associated with the evolution of symbiosis.
This project will provide insight on the evolution of the ectomycorrhizal symbiosis, an economically and ecologically important symbiosis in forest ecosystems. This work will also directly contribute to the training of a Ph.D. student, provide research opportunities for undergraduate students, and foster collaborations between university research labs, citizen scientists, and science educators.
