General Meeting at Harvey West Scout House
Nov 14, 7 PM This month our regular meeting is moved up 1 week so as not to create conflict with Thanksgiving plans.
Rytas Vilgalys | Mushrooms and Climate Change: Fungi in a Changing World
Dr. Rytas Vilgalys' talk will be about studies in his lab at Duke University on environmental mycology using molecular approaches. At his lab, research focuses on sampling DNA directly from the environment using state-of-the-art technologies such as high-throughput sequencing, microarrays, and bioinformatics to study how microbial communities respond to environmental change. He promises to show lots of cool mushroom pictures as well, although the talk will also try to introduce some ideas in fungal ecology.
Vilgalys’ Lithuanian ancestry explains a lot about his fondness for fungi. He first learned to hunt edible mushrooms from his grandmother. In high school on Long Island, he learned mushroom identification from ardent amateur mycologist and NAMA activist Marge Morris. In college, he had the good fortune of having mycologist John Clausz as his advisor at the SUNY College at Geneseo. John also recommended that Vilgalys pursue graduate school with Orson K. Miller at VPI in Blacksburg, VA, where he earned both M.S. and Ph.D. working on mating biology and molecular systematics of agarics. In 1985, he worked as a postdoc with Amy Rossman at the National Fungus Collections in Beltsville, MD, before landing his current position at Duke University. During 26 years at Duke University, he has trained over 24 Ph.D. and masters students. Vilgalys’ lab group at Duke still uses molecular approaches to study fungal natural history at a variety of levels ranging from populations to species and communities. Research areas include: 1) the Fungal Tree of Life Project and the origins of fungal biodiversity; 2) Molecular epidemiology and population genetics of fungi. Genetic studies are aimed at elucidating mating systems and life history in wild mushroom species as well as symbiotic fungi including human pathogens; and 3) community ecology of fungi in the environment. We are sampling DNA directly from the environment using state-of-the-art technologies such as high-throughput sequencing, microarrays, and bioinformatics to study how microbial communities respond to environmental change.