CSBR: Ownership Transfer of University of Maine Chytrid Fungal Collection to University of Michigan

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This project will secure an endangered collection of approximately 500 diverse, living strains of a fungal group known as chytrids. As the world's largest collection of chytrids, it serves as a resource to the research community by providing cultures to biologists in both academic and industrial settings, resulting in biological insights found in over 200 published articles. Although these microscopic fungi reproduce with a swimming spore they occur in soils as well as in fresh and saline waters; they fill important ecological roles as parasites and also by degrading substrates such as pollen and other plant material, insect exoskeletons, hair, etc. Chytrids are notorious for their role in the global decline of amphibians; the collection contains over 180 strains of the amphibian pathogen from around the world. This collection was developed and maintained by Joyce Longcore at the University of Maine without institutional support for more than 25 years. To safeguard the chytrid collection, it will be moved to the University of Michigan's recently remodeled Research Museums Complex where it will be stored in a state-of-the-art cryopreservation facility and managed by the University's Herbarium unit. The collection will be a resource for the scientific community involved in research on chytrids and their function in terrestrial and aquatic systems. Chytrid fungi require special growth and maintenance conditions, because they are aquatic fungi that reproduce with flagellated, wall-less zoospores. Most of the University of Maine collection is cryopreserved, making inter-institutional transfer in a frozen state possible, however, approximately 12% of the collection is routinely transferred in liquid cultures, because it has not been amendable to freezing. The first goal of the project is to move the collection in Maine to the Research Museums Complex in Ann Arbor where fungal strains will be stored in liquid nitrogen freezers. Cryopreservation in the vapor of liquid nitrogen stabilizes samples at -193 degrees Celsius; because inadvertent exposure to temperatures above -80 affects the viability of frozen cultures, storage in liquid nitrogen is safer than storage in typical ultralow freezers with electrical compressors. A second goal of this project is to develop methods to freeze and secure the remaining 12% of strains that have been resistant to cryopreservation. To verify taxonomic assignments of the culture collection and to better characterize its contents, DNA barcoding will be performed by sequencing and making accessible the 18S and ITS ribosomal RNA gene regions. Finally, this project will transform the collection into a public resource by making additional data about the strains accessible online and improving the distribution and maintenance of the cultures. 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.