Fungal Wonders of the World

This presentation will focus on some of the wonders of the fungal world that Bob has encountered over the past decades. These examples are in his top list of fungi that represent the extraordinary nature of the fungal kingdom – they are fungi with a WOW factor.

Bob Blanchette is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota where he teaches classes and carries out research on the biology and ecology of fungi that grow on and attack trees and wood. He has studied fungi around the globe, from Minnesota’s old growth temperate forests to the rainforests of the Amazon and Asia, as well as many investigations on fungi in the Arctic and Antarctic.

He also has been involved with many ethnomycological investigations to understand better how Indigenous People from different parts of the world used forest fungi. A few of his current studies include investigating gigantic bioluminescent fungal networks in the Ecuadorian Amazon, using Minnesota fungi to control invasive exotic species such as the emerald ash borer (using insect pathogens) and buckthorn (using canker, wilt and root rot fungi), and the taxonomy of Ganoderma and other polypores.

This presentation will be recorded and shared a few days later only with current MMS members at the request of the presenter.

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