THE AUSTRALASIAN MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Part of the aim of AMS is to make Mycological Research more accessible and to amplify the efforts of mycologists in Australasia and around the world. Join us for some of the latest and most exciting mycology-focused seminars, in the comfort of your home or office! You'll be able to learn from experts in medical mycology, biotechnology, environmental microbiology, plant and animal pathology, taxonomy and systematics, and phylogenetics. Seminars normally occur on the last Wednesday of each month at 12:00pm (Sydney time) with any exceptions highlighted. Talks are 30 minutes long and are followed by 15 minutes of questions from the audience. Zoom links are provided prior to the date where you can register to attend.
Seminars are free for AMS members and the public, but we encourage non-members to make a AU$5 donation to our society via PayPal. You can do that by clicking on the PayPal button:
If you'd like to join AMS, you can sign up here. You'll get access to a range of other members-only benefits, including seminar recordings.
If you are interested in presenting your mycological research, please get in touch with the AMS council.
Announcing: The AMS Virtual Seminar Program for 2023!
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25th January 2023: Dr Carlos A. Aguilar-Trigueros
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Australia
Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
TOPIC: Functional groups shape the size and function of spores across the Fungal Kingdom
Summary: Theory predicts that spore size influences how successful fungi are at dispersing to and colonizing new habitats, yet a synthesis of empirical data testing this prediction across the fungal kingdom has not been done. Here we performed such a synthesis by assembling a database of fungal offspring morphology covering over 25,000 species and combining these data to databases of fungal functional groups (including pathogenic and mutualistic fungi of plant and animals), worldwide distribution fungal species and phylogeny. We tested a) whether spore size differs between distinct taxonomic and functional groups; and b) whether spore size influences the worldwide distribution of species and whether that influence varies among functional groups. We found that functional groups drive variation in spore size, but this effect was stronger on plant pathogenic fungi in the Ascomycota compared to other fungal groups. We also found that species with smaller spore sizes tend to have larger distribution, but this trend is only observed among free-living functional groups (i.e., saprotrophs) and not in host-associated fungi. Our findings suggest that evolutionary shifts have influenced spore size and its function differently according to functional lifestyles.
https://www.aguilar-ecology.com/about-me
Talk details to be confirmed for the following speakers:
22nd February: Dr Kylie Ireland
29th March: Professor Ian Dickie
26th April: Professor Bernard Slippers
25th May: Dr Anna Hopkins
28th June: You, your colleague or your student?!
Past Virtual Seminars (2022)
October: Assistant Prof Jessie Uehling Watch on YouTube
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University
Bacterial endosymbionts in the Mucoromycota fungi, lessons from comparative genomics
September: Professor Roger Shivas (This talk was not recorded)
University of Southern Queensland
Saving planet Earth - re-evaluating taxonomic best practices
August: Dr Anthony Young Watch on YouTube
University of Queensland
A Streak Through History: Cracking the Sugarcane Chlorotic Streak Disease Riddle
July: Drs Krista Plett and Sophia Callaghan Watch on YouTube
NSW Department of Primary Industries, Biosecurity and Food Safety
Biosecurity Behind the Scenes
June 29, 2022: Dr Camille Truong Watch on YouTube
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Australia.
Ectomycorrhizal fungi and the nitrogen economy of Nothofagus
May: Dr Kar-Chun Tan (KC) Watch on YouTube
The Centre for Crop Disease Management at Curtin University
Untangling the ‘Gordian knot’ – How to unravel a complex fungal disease of wheat by understanding its game of effector hide-and-seek
April: Dr Alistair McTaggart Watch on YouTube
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, University of Queensland
Sex and Drugs
March: Dr Peri Tobias Watch on YouTube
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney
A chromosome-level genome sheds new light on the mating strategy for Austropuccinia psidii (myrtle rust)
February: Wayne Boatwright Watch an Extended Version on YouTube
President of the Queensland Mycological Society
Collecting and Describing Fungi - Citizen Science in Action
January: Dr Jonathan Plett Watch on YouTube
Senior lecturer in plant-microbe interactions at Western Sydney University
Ecological Mergers: exploring how ectomycorrhizal fungi use secreted signals to negotiate host colonization
Past Virtual Seminars (2021)
January 2021: Dr Stephanie Watts-Fawkes, Watch on YouTube
Research Officer, Crop Nutrition, NSW Department of Primary Industries
Identifying and characterising a zinc transporter involved in the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis
February 2021: Matthias Johannes Salomon, Watch on YouTube
PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide
Global analysis of microbial inoculants containing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: 84% of the tested products contained no active propagules
March 2021: A/Prof Amanda Black
Bioprotection Research Centre, Lincoln University
Genomes to Giants: kauri die back and the fight to save these ancient trees
April 2021: Professor Ana Traven
Infection and Immunity Research Program at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University
Metabolic drives of host-pathogen interactions in fungal infections
May 2021: Dr Sarah Sapsford, Watch on YouTube
Fungal and Disease Ecology, University of Canterbury
How fungi can change ecosystems
June 2021: Professor Treena Burgess, Watch on YouTube
Research and Innovation, Murdoch University
Urban forests; bridge-heads and sentinels for Phytophthora introductions
July 2021: A/Prof Jeff Powell, Watch on YouTube
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University
Switching partners - the roles and relationships of dual mycorrhizal systems for eucalypts
August 2021: Dr Kentaro Hosaka, Watch on YouTube
National Museum of Nature and Science, Japan
Natural history of blue entolomas, from Japan and the world
September 2021: Dr Yu Pei Tan
Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Looking in the cupboard: the hidden diversity of microfungi in Australia.
October 2021: Prof. Levente Kiss, Watch on YouTube
University of Southern Queensland
Mycoparasitic fungi in action
December 2021: AMS Research Grant Awardees, Watch on YouTube
Dr Elaine Davison, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University; Research Associate of the Western Australian Herbarium
Relationships in Amanita, with particular reference to local species
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Rebecca Jane Webb, PhD candidate, James Cook University
Glutathione biosynthesis in the amphibian chytrid fungus