News
New Project! Investigative collaboration to find cause and effect of mysterious mass die-off of the invasive fringed water lily (Nymphoides peltata) [Undersökande samarbete för att finna orsak och verkan av mystisk massdöd hos den invasiva främmande arten sjögull (Nymphoides peltata)]. Funded by HaV. Check out my contribution to Mälarseminariet 2023 on this topic -- talk 17 (slides in english).
Its official! Aquatic fungi now have their own group at IUCN! Watch the following for your chance to get involved!
on X @IUCNAquaFungi
MoSTFun is funded! In a huge boost for building the capacity to monitor diversity of aquatic fungi BiodivMon is funded! Stay tuned for more, including project associated student and Postdoc opportunities in the partner countries.
Note: If you are interested pre-publication access to data from the Tetracladium paper already available on bioRxiv, please feel welcome to contact me.
Jennifer Anderson Ph.D.
Researcher
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
Division of Microbial Ecology
Uppsala
Sweden
Current Research
FUNACTION: Aquatic fungal biodiversity: developing knowledge and strategies to inform Conservation priorities and measures Aquatic fungi are not currently on the global conservation agenda--the FUNACTION consortium is working to change this. With research and conservation teams in Estonia, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, and the US we are developing knowledge of fungal distributions, evaluating the efficacy of existing protected areas for conservation of aquatic fungi, and working towards integration of aquatic fungi into existing conservation frameworks. Follow the project online at funaction.eu and on X @FUNACTION_EU. This BiodivProtect project is funded in Sweden by FORMAS, via Biodiversa+ and with cofunding from the European Union. Project start 1 April 2023. Project coordinator: J. Anderson.MoSTFun: Monitoring Strategies and Tools to address knowledge gaps on aquatic Fungal biodiversityStay tuned for more information. Project start 1 April 2024. The MoSTFun consortium, led by Andreas Bruder (Switzerland) includes teams in Norway, Spain, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. This BiodivMon project is funded in Sweden by Naturvårdsverket, via Biodiversa+ and with cofunding from the European Union.
Investigative collaboration to find cause and effect of mysterious mass die-off of the invasive fringed water lily (Nymphoides peltata) [Undersökande samarbete för att finna orsak och verkan av mystisk massdöd hos den invasiva främmande arten sjögull (Nymphoides peltata)].
In summer to early autumn 2023, mass deaths of the invasive plant Nymphoides peltata were observed in Sweden. Observations suggest that a fungal pathogen might underlie this phenomenon. By uniting and engaging diverse stakeholders, coordinated observation and sampling of the plants and fungi will be made in 2024 to better gauge the scale and progression of the plant deaths and identify the fungal pathogens involved. Funded by HaV.
Understanding the multifunctional fungi that connect fields and streams
Insikter om multifunktionella svampar som sammanbinder land och vattendrag
Tetracladium fungi are reported from plants and soils world-wide, e.g. wheat in Sweden and mosses in Antarctica. In spite of their presence in crops, extreme/fragile environments, and threatened plants, we know extremely little about their biology on land. Combining classic field and experimental work with cutting-edge -omics sequencing, I will address this knowledge gap by asking three questions. 1) How are populations on land and in water connected? Using genome-wide SNP data for ~600 individuals I will determine how genotypic diversity is structured or shared between habitats. 2) How are two ecologies achieved from one genome? By comparing the transcriptomes of saprotrophs and endobionts I will uncover how gene expression is differentially regulated in these two lifestyles. 3). How do they impact plants? Using co-culture of fungi with plants, I will study the fungal impact on above and below ground biomass production in plants. The results of this study will greatly expand our extremely limited understanding of Tetracladium spp. in their terrestrial roles, provide needed data to understand their impact on plant hosts, and open a new system to study fungal evolution and plant-microbe interactions.
Understanding adaptation to new and changing environments
Evolutionär anpassning till extrema förhållanden i Tetracladium
The responses of species and populations to challenging environments are of immense interest in the face of anthropogenic environmental threats, but are poorly understood. What genetic and genomic changes are associated with adaptive evolution? What is the role of phenotypic plasticity in determining adaptive outcomes? I will address these questions using the diverse and ecologically important fungi in the genus Tetracladium (Ascomycota). Using genetic, genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and experimental approaches, I will: identify variation associated with different and extreme environments; identify how populations persist in polluted rivers; determine what separates the “winners” from the “losers” in adaptation to pollution. This research addresses key questions in evolutionary biology from SNPs to species, at a level of detail unrealistic to achieve in most eukaryotic organisms, and using natural populations of ecologically important non-model organisms.
Updated 27 September 2021