Walker lab members win Best Student Paper in Fungal Biology
Two members of Dr. Allison Walker's lab won Best Student Paper in Fungal Biology this year from the Canadian Botanical Association. Brent Robicheau (lead) and Alex Young (co-author) presented their paper, The complete mitochondrial genome of the conifer needle endophyte, Phialocephala scopiformis DAOMC 229536 confirms evolutionary division within the fungal Phialocephala fortinii s.l. – Acephala appalanata species complex at the Great Lakes Mycology Meeting in Chaffeys Locks ON in April 2016 & at UC Berkeley USA in July 2016 (Mycological Soc of America annual meeting).
Both recent graduates, Alex Young is currently an MSc student on an NSERC CGS scholarship at STFX while Brent Robicheau, will continue his academic career at Dalhousie on a Killam Scholarship for his PhD.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187861461630174X
Research in the Walker lab includes field collecting in coastal habitats (seagrass, saltmarsh, intertidal, Acadian forest) and traditional culture-based and microscopic identification of fungi, combined with modern molecular systematic and phylogenetic methods, DNA community fingerprinting, ITS barcoding, qPCR probe design and genomics