February 13th. 2007, Dr. Clare H. Robinson
February 13th. 2007
Dr. Clare H. Robinson
University of Manchester
Biodiversity of saprotrophic fungi in relation to their function: do fungi obey the rules?
Abstract
Fungal communities in soil and plant litter are enormously diverse taxonomically, with possibly hundreds of species present in a particular soil horizon. There is still much to be carried out at the local scale to detect the mycelia of fungi and identify them, together with estimating fungal species richness, even in the UK and The Netherlands. Without these initial taxonomic studies, it is impossible subsequently to relate mycelial location and function to species diversity. Scattered data exist about functional diversity of fungi in soil and plant litter, and there is still far to go before specific fungal decomposer functions are satisfactorily described, especially in the natural environment: a combination of methods is needed. Are all the possibly hundreds of fungal species present on decomposing plant litter necessary to maintain decomposition rates? There is some evidence for functional redundancy because frequently isolated species have been found to have the same specific enzyme capabilities for decomposition as occasional ones. The existence of ‘keystone’ species, on which the maintenance of whole ecosystems may rely, suggests that decomposition rate is dependent more on fungal species composition, and its functional repertoire, rather than on simply richness alone.
Summary - CV
I carried out my undergraduate degree at the University of Exeter where I became extremely interested in decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems (taught by Jo Anderson) and the ecology of fungi (taught by John Webster). These interests have stayed with me for over twenty years! My PhD, at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Merlewood and Lancaster University, concerned nutrient cycling in forest soils. Then I carried out three years’ postdoctoral research, also at CEH, about the fungal decomposition of straw. The lure of the High Arctic was strong, however, and I moved to the University of Sheffield (where I eventually met Hans Cornelissen) to undertake another three years’ postdoctoral study concerning the effects of environmental change on the soil biogeochemistry and plant ecology at a polar semi-desert site close to Ny-Ålesund, Spitsbergen (79oN). Around this time I thought I ought to start looking for what everyone’s parents call ‘a proper job’, which I found in 1996 at King’s College London, until our Department closed in 2005. I was lucky enough to transfer to the University of Manchester, where I am currently a lecturer.
My recent work has focused on characterizing the structure and function of fungal communities using molecular techniques (learned on sabbatical at the University of California, Berkeley) and the biogeochemistry of High Arctic soils in response to environmental change. I have published forty or so papers concerning mycology, ecology and soil biology, and to date have successfully supervised one postdoctoral research associate and four PhD students. I am a member of the Natural Environment Research Council’s Peer Review College and of the Editorial Board of the new journal of the British Mycological Society, Fungal Biology Reviews. Previously I have served as a Subject Editor for Soil Biology & Biochemistry for nine years and co-edited Tropical Mycology, the Millennium Symposium of the British Mycological Society.
It is a delight to be invited to the Institute of Ecological Sciences in the Free University of Amsterdam!
Relevant publications
(1) Robinson, C. H., Pryce-Miller, E. J. and Deacon, L. J. (2005). Biodiversity of saprotrophic fungi in relation to their function: do fungi obey the rules? Invited review paper in: Soil Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function (Eds R. D. Bardgett, D. W. Hopkins and M. B. Usher), Special Symposium of the British Ecological Society, Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, pp. 189-215.
(2) Deacon, L. J., Pryce-Miller, E. J., Frankland, J. C., Bainbridge, B. W., Moore, P. D. and Robinson, C. H. (2006). Diversity and function of decomposer fungi from a grassland soil. Soil Biology & Biochemistry 38, 7-20.
Robinson 2005
Robinson 2006
