News

Etienne Herrick, our most recent molecular tech extraordinaire, is moving on from working in the Soils lab as she begins her life as a graduate student. Fortunately she won’t be moving too far as she has joined the Blesh lab here at SEAS. During her time in the lab Etienne worked hard on perfecting ECM-colonized root tip DNA extractions and getting her PCR on. We also secretly (or not) loved her for all the delicious baked goods she brought in. We wish you all the best in your new role as a PhD student! ...

Will’s paper in Global Change Biology, “Anthropogenic N deposition alters soil organic matter biochemistry and microbial communities on decaying fine roots”, is now out online and can be found here. It discusses how shifts in fungal and bacterial communities on fine roots in elevated N sites are related to biochemical responses that contribute to SOM accumulation in soil. Congrats to him! ...

Another Ecology paper for the Soils lab! Don’s paper, “Anthropogenic N deposition, fungal gene expression, and an increasing soil carbon sink in the Northern Hemisphere”, in Ecology is now online. It discusses how the expression of fungal class II peroxidases were down regulated under experimentally increased N deposition and how this impacts greater soil C storage in terrestrial ecosystems. This important molecular mechanism should be represented in coupled climate-biogeochemical models for future rates of atmospheric CO2 and elevated N and it’s impact on global C storage. It can be found at doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2804. Congrats! ...

A new paper is out for the Zak lab! A former EEB PhD student, Huijie Gan, has published her work on oribatid mites and how their communities are structured in Pedobiologia. The manuscript, titled “Scale dependency of dispersal limitation, environmental filtering and biotic interactions determine the diversity and composition of oribatid mite communities”, can be found here. Congrats! ...

In May 2018, the Zak lab (with financial support from the Beyond Carbon Neutral Seminar Series at SEAS) hosted a two-day symposium on ectomycorrhizal fungi and carbon storage, a rapidly developing research field in terrestrial ecosystem ecology. The goal for this was to gather researchers known for work on ECM and nutrient cycling together to present and discuss ideas with a potential to understand the processes that may underlie the observations of mycorrhizal-mediated plant access to nitrogen and soil carbon across ecosystems. This gathering lead to the Viewpoint article “Exploring the role of ectomycorrhizal fungi in soil carbon dynamics” in New Phytologist. It is now online and can be found here ...

Wes’s paper in Ecosphere, “Root endophytes and invasiveness: no difference between native and non‐native Phragmites in the Great Lakes Region” is now out online and can be found here. Congrats to him! ...

The Zak lab was recently awarded a USGS grant thru the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU). This grant, “Examining Phragmites’ microbiome for Potential Control Strategies”, will aid Wes Bickford (EEB PhD student) to further understand how the microbial communities of native and non-native phragmites interact to with their hosts and how that interaction affects establishment of both types of Phragmites ...

Today we added two new members to the Zak lab, Etienne Herrick and Danielle Boshers. Etienne will be working as a research assistant on our NSF grant, and her focus will be on the lab and molecular work for ECM fungal community related to that research. Danielle comes to us through USGS, where she will be working as a research technician on the Phragmites-related research. So Welcome! to them and we all are looking forward to having you both on our team ...