2018 News

Rodolfo and Ryoko conducted fieldwork in forests near Kunming and Hangzhou, China, to identify new Lophodermium species associated with Asian conifers. It was a very productive trip thanks to our hosts Prof. Li and Prof. Zhilin Yuan of the China Academy of Forestry. Some valuable samples from the trip include P. yunnanensis, P. armandii, P. hwangshanensis and Cunninghamia lanceolata (top right photo).

Our project was one of 12 proposals to be selected by the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) for the 2019 Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) initiative!

Very excited that this paper is finally out where we describe a new species of Lophodermium and also give a summary of all the pine-associated Lophodermium endophytes to date. We are also well on our way to making Lophodermium a model endophyte with new NSF and FICUS grants that came through over the summer.

This project will generate the first multi-host, multi-continent database to understand the diversity and specificity of a plant-endophyte symbiosis. This research will help address outstanding and fundamental ecological and evolutionary questions concerning the origin and diversification of fungal endophyte species, specifically addressing how adaptations to different plant hosts may lead to the speciation of endophytes.

Successful European tour including the Evolution Conference in Montpellier followed by an impromptu fieldwork spanning Spain, France, and Italy for pine species. Visited the Alps for the elusive P. cembra as well as the original sites where Mougeot collected L. pinastri in the Pays de Bitches. That means more culturing and more sequencing!

Mycologists throw the best parties! Enjoyed a great conference in San Juan for the International Mycological Congress. Presented talk and posters by Jake Sarver and former postdoc Rodolfo Salas-Lizana.

We propose a conceptual framework that outlines four ‘dimensions’ of host specificity that account for the geographic, phylogenetic or sampling scale under consideration. These ‘dimensions’ quantify FFE abundance and evenness (structural specificity), interaction strength (network specificity), evolutionary relationships (phylogenetic specificity) and the spatial or temporal consistency of the interaction (beta-specificity).

We are happy to announce the public release of the JGI annotation and portal for Lophodermium nitens PLMe3-1-3 v1.0. Annotations of the assembly are now publicly visible. This particular isolate was collected by Rodolfo Salas-Lizana in Mendocino, California, from a sugar pine needle (Pinus lambertiana). This was way way back in fall of 2014. Genome was submitted to JGI April 2016. Lophodermium nitens is thought to be found throughout North America, mainly associating with soft pine (Strobus) needles.

The phylogenetic and population genetic structure of symbiotic microorganisms may correlate with important ecological traits that can be difficult to directly measure, such as host preferences or dispersal rates.

Most class 3 fungal endophytes (sensu Rodriguez et al. 2009) belong to the Ascomycota; members of Basidiomycota are much more infrequently isolated. Endophytic Basidiomycota may be more common in foliage than currently indicated, but biases in identification methods (e.g., primer bias, culturing vs. environmental sequencing) may mask their true diversity and abundance as endophytes.