Prof. Dr. Jason Stajich (University of California, Riverside) (online)

As guest of the CRC 1182

Prof. Dr. Jason Stajich

Fungal Evolutionary Genomics Lab, Dept. of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, Center for Plant Cell Biology at the University of California, Riverside.

Talks about:

Dynamic Discoveries of Fungi-Bacteria and Fungi-Viral Interactions

Fungi occupy broad ecological niches from moisture rich soils, to plant surfaces, to arid rock surfaces, to animal digestive tracts. Some species can withstand extreme heat, cold, radiation, and periods of drought. With these niches, fungi can interact with a variety of other microbes and either compete, avoid, or sometimes cooperate with them as partners. We are investigating several of these interactions. One is the role of endohyphal bacteria which co-exist within Fungi and can play a role in production of secondary metabolites. Using opportunistic sequencing of fungal cultures we find multiple lineages of Bacteria that have been recognized to form stable associations with fungi. A second project has begun investigating how fungi sense Bacteria by detecting Volatile Organic Compounds produced by the Bacteria. We have identified and tested a set of these compounds which are growth inhibiting in Fungi and may be an important mechanism for detecting predatory or competing microbes. A third direction focuses on the discovery of new mycoviruses associated with the chytrid and zygomycete fungal lineages and the work we have done to characterize their evolution. The presentation will highlight the ways these fungal-microbe interactions are being studied and some of the results and findings we have made so far in these emerging areas of research.

Register in advance for this Zoom meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkf-yrqTIjEtUvoiRsCvWtxXIl1I1oqAqa