Amy Z has started teaching at GWU with a class in Plant Comparative Structure and Function for undergraduates. She and Amy M have had several grants funded to support local work on fungal wood decay through grants from GWU and the Smithsonian with collaborators Sean McMahon and Melissa McCormick at SERC. The lab has presented at the USDA in Beltsville, MD and at the University of Western Sydney in Australia. Amy recently gave a talk at the University of Maryland BEES seminar series and will soon talk at Phylopizza at the Smithsonian. She is a co-author on papers lead by Brendan Choat and Steven Jansen, Rob Kooyman, Rob Lanfear, and Vania Torrez. Amy also gave a hand at the American Society of Plant Biologists booth at the Annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House Lawn. So many small people to recruit as budding botanists!

Darcy and Mariya spent time with Dan Lindner at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI extracting fungal DNA from our rotting wood. Darcy continued on to the University of California, Irvine to work with Steve Allison to quantify wood decay enzymes. Mariya has been working with collaborators at the University of Idaho and GWU to sequence amplicons and metagenomes from rotting wood. We can’t wait to see who is rotting our wood!

Oyomoare has been sectioning wood samples from Panama and Tyson for wood anatomy while juggling several manuscripts and the latest lab addition, Owen!

Elvis is writing up his MSc thesis on aboveground biomass storage in Peruvian peatlands. Go Elvis!

Maranda, after getting married to Dan in Hawaii, is now settling into a technician position with our collaborator and good friend, Jonathan Meyers. She was a big hand when Brad and Amy visited St. Louis.

Amy and Brad spent time working with Brendan Choat and Jeff Powell on fungal wood decay at Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at the University of Western Sydney; they will return there this summer for more wood rot plot experiments. They also attended the final Tempo and Mode NESCent meeting, examining projects such as evolution of freezing tolerance and mycorrhizal symbioses. They had a whirlwind trip back to St. Louis to harvest a leaf and fine branch decay experiment and pack up field and lab gear. Great to see so many friends in St. Louis!

The lab has had numerous visitors including Sean McMahon, Doug Levey, Nathan Kraft, and David Hibbett, who all gave stellar departmental seminars. Thanks!

You can catch various lab members at meetings this summer and fall including:

ESA, MSA, Intecol, and TRY. Hope to see you soon!