Tonight, Hunter Simpson and Sofia Simeto Ferrari, two of this year’s winners of the MMS Graduate Student Scholarship, will present on a topic of their research and field of study. This scholarship to offered every year for students currently enrolled in graduate level studies with an emphasis on mycology at the University of Minnesota.

Hunter Simpson – Using aggregated field collection data for comprehensive analyses of fungal traits

Fungi have diverse ecological roles and in order to better understand these roles it is useful to investigate which fungi exhibit certain ecological traits (i.e., habitat, host, or substrate associations) and study how these traits change across space and time. Archived sporocarp collections and observations, which include digitized fungarium specimens as well as research-grade specimen observations from citizen science platforms (e.g., iNaturalist; MushroomObserver), are well-suited for trait investigations since these records circumvent the need for field work, are geographically and temporally diverse, and often have detailed environmental metadata with trait-relevant information. However, these data do come with a variety of challenges such as data access inefficiencies, variability in the structure and quality of environmental metadata, outdated taxon names, and misspelled taxon and location names. Here, I present recent work aimed at overcoming these challenges and enabling comprehensive taxonomic, geographic, and temporal analyses of fungal traits.

Hunter Simpson is currently pursuing a PhD in Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Minnesota with a thesis focused on fire-associated wood-decay fungi. During his studies, he has served as the Foray and Workshop Coordinator for the U of M Mycology Club and currently serves as the Vice President. After graduating, he plans to pursue a mycology-focused research career within academia or at a DOE national laboratory.

Sofia Simeto Ferrari – Entomopathogenic Fungi associated with the Emerald Ash Borer

Entomopathogenic fungi (fungi that parasitize and kill insects) occur naturally and are responsible for the control of many insect populations. They are considered good candidates to be incorporated in integrated pest management approaches as biological control agents. We have found several species of entomopathogenic fungi native to Minnesota and associated with Emerald Ash Borer galleries. The aim of our study is to assess their potential as biological control agents against EAB by evaluating the virulence of different strains towards different life stages of the pest under controlled laboratory conditions and field conditions.

Sofia Simeto Ferrari is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota pursuing a PhD in Plant Pathology and working at the Forest Pathology Laboratory with Dr. Robert Blanchette as advisor. She is originally from Uruguay where she obtained her Bachelor of Science in Biology and Master of Science at the University of the Republic.

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