Speaker Series November 27th at 7:30pm
Please join us on Zoom on Wednesday, November 27th at 7:30pm for our online Speaker Series.
The role of animals in dispersal of unique tropic Fungi
Dispersal is a life history trait that has profound consequences for the persistence of species. For sedentary organisms such as fungi, dispersal is usually accomplished through the spread of spores by either abiotic (e.g., wind, rain) or biotic (e.g., animals) factors. Biotic mechanisms typically involve providing a reward to encourage animal dispersal of spores, such as the edible fleshy fruiting bodies produced by many mushroom species that are eaten and dispersed by mammals. Some interesting neotropical fungi do not have obvious methods for dispersal, two of will be discussed in detail in this talk. The first, Brunneocorticium corynecarpon (=Rhizomorpha corynecarpos) is an unusual fungus, now known to be widespread in the neotropics, but one that is only known from vegetative mycelial cords; no sexual or asexual fruiting has ever been observed for this fungus, raising the question of how it maintains a broad distribution in Central and South America. The second, Guyanagaster necrorhizus is a sequestrate species, but one that produces none of the characteristics that are compatible with a mammal dispersal model. Data from both species were collected over multiple years from sampling in neotropical forests. We applied a combination of field observations, DNA sequence analysis and phylogenetic reconstructions, and microbiome, genomic, and proteomic analyses to infer their placement within the fung
Cathie Aime is Professor of Mycology, Department of Botany & Plant Pathology and Director of the Arthur Fungarium and Kriebel Herbarium at Purdue University. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University under the guidance of Orson K. Miller, Jr., and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford under Lorna Casselton. Cathie’s research combines expeditionary field work and traditional approaches with molecular genetics and multi-omics approaches to understand fungal diversity and evolution. Areas of specialization include tropical basidiomycetes, systematics of early diverging basidiomycete lineages (including smuts and yeasts), evolution of rust fungi, and epidemiology of tropical tree diseases. Cathie is a past Managing Editor of the journal Mycologia and is currently President of the Mycological Society of America and Vice President of the International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi. Cathie is a fellow of the Mycological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Explorer’s Club, and the Linnean Society of London
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