2022 Spring Seminar Series Presents
Dr. Ryan Folk
Assistant Professor, and herbarium curator
Department of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University
WHEN: May 6, at Noon
WHERE: Seminar will be presented via Zoom
Please email jacki.craig@ucdenver.edu to receive the Zoom Meeting Link. Requests can be submitted any time before the Seminar but not after 10:00am the day of the seminar.
Nitrogen-fixing symbioses: Insights from a megaphylogenetic approach.
Despite its status as one of the most globally successful symbioses, the evolutionary origins of the relationship between nitrogen-fixing bacteria and the plants that house them in nodules, as well as the ecological factors maintaining the relationship, remain obscure. While nodulation is often thought of as an adaptation to poor soils, nodulators are diverse outside such harsh environments and absent from many habitats that theory might predict they should occupy. I will present ongoing work investigating what environmental drivers are associated with promoting nitrogen-fixing strategies and the potential role of nodulation in the diversification of the ~20,000 species that today engage in nitrogen-fixing symbiosis, using for the first time an explicitly phylogenetic approach.
Everyone is welcome to join the seminar, please email jacki.craig@ucdenver.edu to receive the Zoom link. Requests can be submitted any time before the seminar but not after 10:00am the day of the seminar.