Category: News

Great news for Jennifer Wen, SEAS MS in the Zak lab. She was recently awarded the Peter and Carolyn Mertz Fellowship for her Master’s work. This only highlights what we all know – she’s pretty exceptional. Congrats to Jen!!

Will Argrioff, a PhD in SEAs in the Zak lab, has recently published a paper, titled “Decay by ectomycorrhizal fungi couples soil organic matter to nitrogen availability” in Ecology Letters. In this study, interactions between soil nitrogen, fungal community composition and soil organic matter were examined to determine correlations for fungal communities with changes in...

A new paper from the Zak lab. Peter Pellitier, former PhD from SEAs, has recently published a paper, titled “Ectomycorrhizal access to organic nitrogen mediates CO2 fertilization response in a dominant temperate tree”, in Nature Communications. This work focused on the linking metagenomic data for ECM fungi and modeling data for N-foraging traits for inorganic...

Peter Pelliter, recent PhD from SEAs, has recently published a paper, titled “Coupled shifts in ectomycorrhizal communities and plant uptake of organic nitrogen along a soil gradient: An isotopic perspective”, which is out online on Ecosystems. The study characterized the ECM communities and various N pools (d15N) in an inorganic N gradient in soil to...

Wes Bickford, recent PhD from EEB, has recently published a paper, titled “Differences in rhizosphere microbial communities between native and non‐native Phragmites australis may depend on stand density”, which is out online at Ecology and Evolution. The paper compares the rhizosphere soil microbiome, including bacteria, fungi and oomycetes, and the environmental conditions of a native...

This fall we are welcoming a new student – Jennifer Wen! She recently graduated from UM from Program in the Environment and will be pursuing an MS in the Soils lab. She is interested in interactions between soil, plants and microbes and their influence on ecosystem health, so a super good fit for the lab....

Don has been named to one of the University of Michigan’s top honors – a Distinguished University Professor, specifically as the Alexander H. Smith Distinguished University Professor of Ecology. In his nomination, Rackham Graduate School Dean Michael Solomon wrote that “Professor Zak is one of the nation’s foremost ecologists, and the world leader in the...

Congratulations to Peter Pellitier for completing and defending his dissertation, Ectomycorrhizal fungi differentially obtain N derived from soil organic matter: implications for community assembly and forest response to climate change on June 29th. Thanks to his committee for all their support, especially during this time, Don Zak (chair), Deborah Goldberg, Ines Ibáñez and Tim James....

Don has been named as a 2020 Ecological Society of America Fellow (announced here). This fellowship recognizes ESA members who have made “outstanding contributions to … ecological knowledge”. They are elected for life come from all fields of science that are connected to ESA. One other UM Faculty was elected this year and two other...

Congratulations to Wes Bickford for successfully defending his dissertation, Plant invasions and microbes: the interactive effects of plant-associated microbes on invasiveness of Phragmites australis, in December. Also congrats to his committee Deborah Goldberg (co-chair), Don Zak (co-chair), Ines Ibáñez, Tim James and Kurt P. Kowalski (USGS). Wes has been one of the busiest grad students...