News

Welcome Zhijun Mavis Ding and Gwendolyn Pohlmann to EEMB and Santa Barbara! Mavis is coming from Denison University in Ohio and has been studying eco-evolutionary dynamics of both plants and microbes. Gwen is most recently coming from University of Miami where she studied plant microbiomes. We are excited to have you both start! 

Abhi Dighe successfully completed a Master's thesis that investigates signals of phylosymbiosis among a diverse set of foliar fungal endophytes and their host plants.

Gabe Runte has published the results of a multi-year restoration project funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in this special issue of Fire and Forests in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

Congratulations Austen for finishing your PhD! A beautiful talk was given followed by wonderful celebration. Austen is heading off to bigger and better things for a postdoc with Prof. Posy Busby at Oregon State University and then ANOTHER postdoc with Prof. Kathleen Treseder at UC Irvine. The Oono Lab will miss you! And it is very exciting to see this amazing project coming to a near-close.

Welcome to grad school, Abhishek Dighe! Abhishek is a long-time member of the Oono Lab since pre-COVID times. One of the few stayed with us during the hardest times and decided he could stick around a little longer to do a Master's. He is interested in evolutionary biology and will be studying the evolution of host specificity in Lophodermium.

Congratulations to Austen Apigo for receiving the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship and to Mari Irving for being named recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! 

Fig. 5. Endophytes in evergreen plant species tended to be found in fewer plant species (a) and more consistently in those same plant species across quadrats (b) compared with endophytes found in deciduous plants.

Long-time fan but first-time published in the official journal of the International Symbiosis Society, Symbiosis!

We are incredibly thankful for the Sonoma County Mushroom Association (SOMA) for continued support of our CA graduate students studying mycology.

Congratulations to Helen Chang and Gillyan Valencia on graduation!