Seminar on Microbes, Land Use and Climate

Electron microscope image of endomycorrhizal fungi with spores attached to the hyphal strands. | Photo courtesy of The Organic Gardener's Pantry

Biologist Krista McGuire, head of the McGuire Microbial Ecology Lab at the University of Oregon, will be give a talk titled, "Responses of plant-associated microbes to human land use" on Friday, Nov. 30, at 4 p.m. in the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB) Boathouse Auditorium in Charleston. (63466 Boat Basin Road, Charleston). Admission is free and all are welcome. This lecture is part of OIMB's Fall 2018 Seminar Series. 

The primary focus of Dr. McGuire's lab is to understand how the community assembly processes of soil microbial communities influence the diversity and distribution patterns of plant communities, and what the consequences of these relationships are for nutrient cycling processes. Their main study systems are tropical rain forests, which have the most diverse tree communities of any terrestrial ecosystem. McGuire's lab also investigates how plant-microbial interactions respond to anthropogenic disturbances such as agricultural production, shifting climate, and urbanization. Human activity is known to cause major alterations in biodiversity and biogeochemical cycling across the planet, and soil fungi and bacteria often mediate ecosystem responses to these changes. To uncover the underlying ecological mechanisms for these patterns and processes, her lab uses an integrative approach that combines ecosystem-level measurements, field experiments, functional assays, and genomics.

These OIMB lectures, while open to all, are fully scientific in nature, which is to say that they aren't "populatized."  For those seriously interested in science, they provide an opportunity to listen in as researchers talk among themselves.  To reach the Boathouse Auditorium, park near the OIMB campus (63466 Boat Basin Rd.) and walk down the lane past the Coast Guard housing.