Voucher specimens of over 87,000
plant species on Mt. Elphie are kept in the Herbarium. The
collection includes over 2000 specie of fungi. The Spore Lab Tour
Welcome to the Mt. Elphinstone Herbarium!.
The Spore Lab is one of several
buildings here on the Herbarium grounds. The entire operation is
run on a special United Nations grant of $2.4 billion of which 93%
goes to rich lawyers, politicians and administraters. All
research operations are headed by Captain Max Mushroom, a
volunteer. His elves and gnomes earn minimum wage.
Voucher specimens of over 87,000
plant species on Mt. Elphie are kept in the Herbarium. The
collection includes over 2000 specie of fungi.
Captain Max does have some cool toys
at the Spore Lab!
I don't
know what this thing is called but it makes the spores spin
around real fast!
Oh, there's Captain Max Mushroom! Tell us Captain Max, what
exactly is it that you guys do here?
"Progress in fungal systematics was greatly impeded by
the paucity of morphological characters coupled with the
phenotypic plasticity of fungi. The advent of molecular
systematics alleviated many of these problems by providing large
data sets that are independent of morphology and can be
reproducibly analyzed. The focus of our laboratory's research is
molecular phylogenetics of fungi with an emphasis
on the evolutionary biology of ascomycete symbioses and the
phylogenetic integration of ecologically
disparate groups of fungi.
Ascomycetes form a myriad of symbioses with all major groups
of life on earth. These symbioses may
range from parasitic to mutualistic. Two classic ascomycete
symbioses addressed by researchers in our lab are those with
algae (lichens) and arthropods. Lichens are the quintessential
example of symbiosis
in most general biology and botany textbooks, yet little is known
about the evolutionary origins of lichenized ascomycetes. If
accurate inferences regarding the evolution of ascomycetes are to
be made,
lichenized and nonlichenized forms must be considered
simultaneously. Molecular phylogenetics
provides a means to integrate these two forms in a common data
set.
Ascomycete-arthropod symbioses are diverse and evolutionary
dynamic associations. Many species
independently evolved arthropod-dispersed ascospores. They
possess strikingly similar morphologies
and life histories that are the process of strong selection
pressures and convergent evolution. The
Ophiostomatales, which comprises several plant pathogens
including the causal agent of Dutch Elm
disease, is a one such group that is the focus of research in our
lab. Another group containing entomogenous as well as other host-specific
fungi is the Clavicipitales. These fungi display complex
patterns of host-shifts and co-speciation among arthropods,
grasses and subterranean ascomycetes.
Many of these fungi are potential biological control agents. A
better understanding of their phylogenetic
history will have both predictive and diagnostic consequences
towards the selection and use of entomopathogenic fungi as
biological control agents.
A large amount of nucleotide sequence data is produced by
researchers in our lab. These data allow us
to contribute to both theoretical and practical aspects of
systematics that extend beyond mycology.
Such areas of research include combining and partitioning data
sets, molecular clock and evolutionary
rate analyses, character mapping, nuclear versus mitochondrial
evolution and molecular evolution of
ribosomal DNA and other coding regions. We are also working on a
'better peanut butter sandwich'"
Ya'll come back now, ya hear!
Visit the Spore Lab! Check out Captain Max's
Den too! 
LINKS