Learn how fungi can fight global warming at UCI lecture

EVENT: Biogeochemist Kathleen Treseder will talk on “Digging up the Dirt on Global Climate Change” as part of the 2006-07 Discover the Physical Sciences Breakfast Lecture Series at UC Irvine. Treseder will explain how soil fungi can combat global warming and how scientists can predict the ways in which ecosystems will influence climate. After the lecture, the public is invited to tour Treseder’s laboratory on the UCI campus.

DATE: Tuesday, May 22, 2007
TIME: 7:30-9 a.m.
LOCATION: Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, 100 Academy, Irvine

BACKGROUND: Can ecosystems reduce the greenhouse effect by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? Soil fungi are little-known players in this possibility. Mycorrhizal fungi, which grow on the roots of most plants, supply soil nutrients to the host plants in exchange for carbon. The fungi use this carbon to produce chemical compounds that remain in the soil long after the fungi have died. Through this process, carbon remains in the soil and is not released into the atmosphere.

Treseder’s research is based primarily in the Alaskan forests. She received her doctorate from Stanford University and was a faculty member at University of Pennsylvania before coming to UCI, where she is now an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. She has received many honors, including the Chancellor’s Award for Fostering Undergraduate Research at UCI, the Charles Ludwig Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Pennsylvania, and an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Fellowship. Treseder was featured in Harper’s Bazaar magazine as one of 33 young women likely to influence their respective fields in the 21st century.