Donald R. Zak

A new paper is out with Ines Ibáñez along with Zak lab collaborators that delves into questions about the true relationship for mycorrhizal fungal relationships with plants and how nitrogen availability affected their behavior. This study looked at growth data in mature trees for two different maple species and one oak species, AMF and EMF-associated, respectively, across a gradient of nitrogen availability. Using this data, we studied the association with specific mycorrhizal taxa to determine whether they had positive, neutral or negative associations with tree growth. As these associations my contribute to how plants respond to future warming conditions, increase...

Rima Upchurch, whom started working in the Zak lab in 2006, has taken a new position at the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) as a biogeochemist analyst. While she will no longer be working directly on campus, as CIGLR is housed in NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), she will continue to be a part of SEAS through CIGLR. Aquatic biogeochemistry is a new world from soils work, but she's eager to take on the challenge and grateful for everything she has learned in the Zak lab over the years. "Thank you to all the students, post-docs,...

Several past and recent lab alums were able to surprise Don with a retirement Party on April 25th. His official retirement isn't until the end of May, but being sneaky we had a party early. Don started working as a professor at the University of Michigan for the then School of Natural Resources & Environment in 1988. He has remained a embodied a true professor as not only a celebrated scholar but also a dedicated educator. During his time at Michigan he has won received numerous honors, both for science and teaching, a weathered several Deans and name change to...

Jennifer Wen, a former SEAS Master's student in the Zak lab, now has a paper out titled "Ammonium oxidation by bacteria and archaea have functional implications for nitrification across a forested landscape". This work draws on her thesis work on the amoA gene of archaea along a natural nitrogen mineralization gradient, but it expanded the scope to include ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in the same system. The amoA gene encodes for the gene that is the first step in nitrification, which converts ammonium (NH3+) to nitrite (NO2-), and understanding the diversity and composition of this gene can give us a better understanding...

Morgan McPherson, a joint post-doctoral scholar in the Zak and Ibáñez lab at SEAS, has a new paper out titled "Arbuscular mycorrhizal diversity increases across a plant productivity gradient driven by soil nitrogen availability". This study characterized the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soils across a plant productivity gradient, coinciding with a nitrogen mineralization gradient.  The soils were associated with Red and Sugar Maple trees in Manistee National Forest, which are known AMF host species.  AMF-specific 18S rDNA targeted-gene libraries were constructed using in-lab designed primers to examine the communities and diversity of AMF.  Their diversity significantly increased along the...

This summer the Zak lab had the opportunity to host Olises Perez as part of the Aspirnaut program. The Aspirnaut Summer Research Internship Program, administered by Life Sciences Institute (LSI), brings rising Michigan high school seniors to UM to give them hands-on lab experience over a 6-week period. The goal is to encourage students, especially those in disadvantaged communities, to strive for education and careers in various STEM fields. Each Aspirnaut works with a mentor to conduct their own research, then presents their results to their peers and other mentors. The project that Olises worked on while in the Zak...