In the forest ecosystem, dead wood is a dynamic and complex ecological niche in which fungi play a central role in the decomposition of lignocellulosic components. It is known that wood saprotrophs with varied life history traits produce fruit bodies in a successional order along the decomposition process of dead wood. Pioneer species with ruderal characteristics are displaced by intermediate colonizers with higher competitive ability. At late stages of decomposition or in changing environments, tolerance to stress becomes a major determinant of colonization success, either solely or in combination with ruderal and competitive characteristics. This knowledge on fungal assembly history results mainly from fruitbody inventories, but recent culturing experiments and sequencing surveys reveal that there is more going on in dead wood than what meets the eye. Preliminary results show significant differences in mycelial growth rates and enzymatic profiles that relate to the species life-history traits as well as at which successional stage they fruit.
Objectives: In this project you will follow up on studies done at the petri dish-scale by examining microscopic interactions between fungal hyphae to study how the fungal mycelia of pioneer, intermediate and late colonizers of wood interact at the micro scale in pairwise combative experiments using microfluidic chip technology. We will score their combative capabilities as deadlock or exclusion, allowing species ranking based on their competitive hierarchy. Using microfluidic soil chip systems, we will also study how different fungal species vary in their ability to colonize new environments and handle interactions with other species in confined spaces by assessing morphological responses at the micro-scale in the fungi.
Iam looking for a master student with a keen interest in:
- Fungi (learning about fungal interactions and physiology, culturing fungi)
- Microbial Ecology (understanding successional dynamics in wood decomposition)
- Microscopy (most measurements are made through microscopy in chip systems)
- Learning new techniques (microfluidics, image analysis)
- Behavioural ecology
This project is a collaboration with Dr Sundy Maurice at the National History Museum in Paris, but all lab work will be conducted here at Lund University in the Functional Ecology division and the master’s student will be embedded in the Soil Chip research group.
If this sounds interesting to you, or you have other ideas for a master project involving fungi, please don’t hesitate to contact me: kristin.aleklett_kadish@biol.lu.se