CMS Meeting – December 21, 2022

Please join us for the December meeting of the Cascade Mycological Society. Dr. Peter Kennedy will be joining us virtually from snowy Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since it is winter and close to Christmas, we decided a virtual meeting for everyone is appropriate. So, pour a mug of your favorite warm beverage, get comfy, and be prepared to expand your knowledge of fungi.

In this talk, Dr Kennedy, a Professor at the University of Minnesota, will discuss his lab’s recent explorations of the specificity of associations between ectomycorrhizal trees and fungi. Their work has focused primarily on two related fungal genera that are abundant in the Pacific Northwest, Suillus (commonly known as the slippery jacks) and Rhizopogon (commonly known as false truffles). Much of our research combines pairing field surveys of tree-fungus pairings with experimental bioassays testing patterns of specificity in different host environments. Understanding patterns of host specificity is not only helpful in mushroom foraging and identification, but may also be increasingly important for understanding how forest diversity will respond to changing climatic conditions.

About the Speaker

Peter Kennedy is an ecologically-focused mycologist who is broadly interested in plant-microbe interactions. He received his undergraduate degree from The Evergreen State College and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the faculty in the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology at the University of Minnesota in 2013.

To learn more about ongoing research check out the Kennedy Lab website.