Link to the Masterclass will be found on your Student Dashboard after registration!
(Free for Fungal Ecology Students!)
Mycorrhizal fungi are a diverse team of symbiotic organisms that inhabit the root system of early 90% of all land plants. Molecular dating and fossil records suggest that these fungi were pivotal for the migration of plants from the oceans onto land.
Today, mycorrhizal fungi are found nearly everywhere land plants grow, but there are thousands of different species with unique ecologies and functional abilities.
Dr.Mark Anthony will share recent discoveries about the importance of mycorrhizal fungal diversity forest health and beyond and will provide a look into the future to discuss how these critical members of nearly all ecosystems will be affected by ongoing and worsening global changes like invasive species, pollution, and climate change.
And finally, Dr.Mark Anthony will provide a vision for harnessing the ecology of mycorrhizal fungi to more sustainably manage our ecosystems and better prepare for the future.
Mark is a postdoc and Ambizione fellow leading a research group within the Ecosystem Ecology Unit at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forests, Snow, and the Landscape – WSL.
He will begin as an assistant professor of systems ecology at the University of Vienna in January, 2024. He completed his PhD in the USA in 2019 at the University of New Hampshire and the Harvard Forest where he investigated fungal responses to invasive species, atmospheric pollution, and climate change and linked this to changes in forest biogeochemical cycles.
His current research focuses on the large- and small-scale linkages between microbiomes and forest composition and functioning, and how this will be affected by multiple dimensions of global change.
Much like his earlier research, he continues to focus on fungi and the symbiotic relationships between trees and biotrophic fungi like mycorrhizae.
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