34th Annual Student Research Conference
Exploring Fungal Diversity of Northeast Missouri
Emily J. Ubbelohde
Dr. William Alexander, Faculty Mentor
Fungi play an integral role in many ecosystems. They occupy crucial niches, such as forming symbiotic relationships with many plants or acting to recycle decaying biological matter back into the food web. Despite their importance to the health of almost all biomes, the fungal diversity found within the soil of northeast Missouri has not been studied in great detail. Most fungal samples collected have been identified through morphological characteristics by amateur clubs. Superficially, microfungi found within the soil look identical, which leads to unreliable identification, but most amateurs are unable to afford more objective identification techniques such as genetic sequencing. Thus, introducing a cost-effective, sequence-based identification method would be beneficial to understanding the diversity of these organisms. We have designed and implemented such a technique, and have used it together with classical morphological identification to begin cataloging the diversity of fungal species found within the soil northeast Missouri.
Keywords: Mycology, DNA Sequencing, Fungi, Mushrooms
Topic(s):Biology
Presentation Type: Asynchronous Virtual Poster
Session: 4-12
Location: https://flipgrid.com/7ba08930
Time: 0:00