Who's there?: Describing Soil Fungal Communities with High Throughput DNA Sequencing Approaches

Presentation Abstract:

DNA sequencing targeting genomic regions suitable for scanning microbial diversity in environmental samples (e.g. soil, water, plant materials) is emerging as a useful approach to surveying "who" might be inhabiting a site of interest and how the community   changes under different influences. In this talk I will:
a) Provide an overview of how community profiling with target gene regions is generally performed
b) Use several published studies on the disconnection of soil mycorrhizal fungi to photosynthetically derived carbon, to demonstrate how DNA sequencing approaches can be used to track the death of these soil fungi
c) Provide examples of how DNA sequencing has been used in my own research to look at soil fungal communities from a subboreal spruce forest and how fungal community profiles might indicate soil disturbance.

Past NRESi colloquia and special lectures can be viewed on our video archive, available here.