Author Archives: Rytas Vilgalys

Suillus metatranscriptomics paper published in PLOS Genetics

Our first  paper on compatibility/incompatibility in Suillus is finally out!  Suillus species are members of the bolete family that fruit in association with different members of the conifer family Pinaceae. Here’s what we report in this paper: 1. We tested 5 species of Suillus for … Continue reading

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Sept 23-25: Mushroom Hunting in Vermont—Lithuanian Style

Last week we went hunting for fungi in Vermont at Camp Neringa, a Lithuanian summer camp where I used to go as a kid.  The foray got a write up by author Laima Vince in the Huffington Post.  Even found some Suillus!      

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Sept 17-18: Alex Smith Foray Report (Univ. Michigan Biological Field Station)

Mycologists and their students from  the Great Lakes region meet each fall for the A. H. Smith foray.  Alex Smith was my academic grandfather, widely known as the dean of  modern American mushroom taxonomy, and who taught mycology at Univ. of Michigan … Continue reading

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Aug 1-4, 2016: Sierra truffles and Suilli

This pre-conference field trip to the southern Sierra’s was a repeat performance of an earlier pre-meeting foray that took place in 1996 prior to the 1st International Conference on Mycorrhizae.   That conference was hosted by Tom Bruns and his colleagues from UC Berkeley, … Continue reading

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Undergraduate Assistant Positions available:  Genetics of plant-fungal interactions.

  We have several openings for independent study and paid research assistants for projects that study interactions between plants and their symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi.   We are using molecular-based methods to study interactions between symbiotic fungi with with native tree species (pines, … Continue reading

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Summer 2016 – Fungi of Mountain Lake Biological Station

Just finished an excellent 3-week field mycology class at the Mountain Lake Biological Station (9-29 July, 2016).  MLBS is operated by the University of Virginia Biology Department, and is located in a remote part of the southern Appalachian mountains near Pembroke, VA. … Continue reading

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Postdoc position available: Mycorrhizal Genomics, Bioinformatics

The Vilgalys Lab at Duke University seeks a postdoctoral researcher in the area of fungal genomics, bioinformatics, and molecular evolution.  The selected candidate will contribute to ongoing studies on comparative genomics of ectomycorrhizal  fungi (Suillus spp.) and their symbiotic interaction with pines and … Continue reading

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2016 ORNL, INRA and Duke fungal genomics meeting

May 24-25, 2016:  We just finished hosting an excellent meeting with our Plant Microbial Interfaces research team, which includes scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Francis Martin’s mycorrhizal genomics group from INRA.  Two full days of research updates and discussion … Continue reading

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April: visitors, morels, and MASMC

April is a beautiful time of year in North Carolina and a great time to visit Duke University. This month we hosted several visitors to our lab, and also attended MASMC Apr 14: Alija Mujic (Ph.D., Oregon State University, currently in … Continue reading

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Fungi featured in Nat Geographic blog post

http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/19/why-mushrooms-rule-the-fungi-kingdom/

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