Who's in charge? Fungus-bacteria interactions in decomposing wood

Fungi have long been known as the main agents of wood decomposition. Wood decay fungi are very competitive towards each other, but there has been little information about how they interact with bacteria.

In this research seminar Dr Sarah Christofides will show that fungi exert a lot of influence over bacterial communities in wood. She will also present evidence that bacteria can in turn influence fungal growth and interactions.

Speaker

Dr Sarah Christofides did her bachelor's degree in ecology at Cardiff University. From that she went into a PhD, also at Cardiff, supervised by Profs. Andy Weightman and Lynne Boddy. She is now a postdoc with Prof. Hilary Rogers (still at Cardiff - didn't fall very far from the tree!) looking at the effects of climate change on forage grass responses in the rumen. Her main research interest is the world of fungal ecology, but she is also very keen on using statistics (particularly multivariate) to uncover ecological stories.