Monika Fischer: The nutrient niche of fire-adapted fungi

In August 2013, the Rim Fire decimated beloved backcountry of Yosemite National Park and Stanislaus National Forest in California. Serendipitously, the fire burned through established long-term research sites, which provided a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of post-fire microbial succession. Wildfires alter soil chemistry (depending on temperature, duration, and initial carbon source material), and up to 80% of the carbon in post-fire soils is a heterogeneous mixture of highly aromatic compounds and other compounds that are slow to decompose. I aim to elucidate how fire-adapted fungi respond to and utilize the unique chemistry of post-fire soils using a combination of transcriptomics and metabolomics with filamentous fungi that were isolated at various time-points after the Rim Fire.