The Evolution of the Airborne Ecosystem

Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by the incredible myco-maven Mia Maltz PhD. As a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Biomedical Sciences at UC Riverside, her research focuses on fungal communities and functional ecology in novel ecosystems, including pumice plains, drying lakebeds, and the lung mycobiome. Mia studied at the University of California, Irvine where she received my Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with an emphasis on Ecological Restoration and Fungi. Her dissertation work in Kathleen Treseder’s Lab of Fungi, Ecosystems, and Global Change looked at the effects of habitat fragmentation and ecosystem degradation on fungal community composition and function. For her dissertation research, Mia investigated whether restoration techniques affect fungi and evaluated the efficacy of methods for restoring mycorrhizal fungal function within degraded landscapes. As an ecologist working at the interface of community ecology, biogeography, and mycology, her work broadly focuses on community responses to environmental perturbations, which feedback to influence plant and fungal community structure and ecosystem functioning.   

TOPICS COVERED:  

• Discovering a Passion for Permaculture & Ecological Restoration  
• The Power of Showing Up & Making Connections  
• Importance of Surveys Prior to Any Course of Bioremediation  
• Functions of Different Mycorrhizal Fungi  
• Roles of Saprobic Fungi & Pathogenic Fungi in Ecological Restoration   
• Plant and Microbial Communications  
• Importance of Precautionary Principle  
• Ecological BioStimulation & BioAugmentation  
• Founding of CoRenewal & Amazon MycoRenewal Project  
• Open-Source Research Protocols  
• Future Economic Significance of Bioremediation  
• Environmental Justice   
• Dust Microbiome & Fungal Ecosystems in the Air  
• Women in Mycology  

EPISODE RESOURCES:  

• Mia Maltz Academic Website: https://sites.uci.edu/maltz/   
• Mia Maltz Personal Website: http://miamaltz.com/   
• Mia Maltz IG: https://www.instagram.com/myceliumia/   
• Mia Maltz Twitter: https://twitter.com/miamaltz   
• CoRenewal & Amazon MycoRenewal: https://www.amazonmycorenewal.org/   
• John Todd: https://www.toddecological.com/   
• Jan Colemeier: https://www.amazon.com/Marine-Mycology-Higher-Jan-Kohlmeyer/dp/1483241882   
• Treseder Lab: http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/tresederlab/   
• Dr. Michael Allen: https://ccb.ucr.edu/facilities/lab   
• Mycological Society of America - Students: https://msastudents.org/   
• CZNet: https://criticalzone.org/   
• Protocols.io: https://www.protocols.io/   
• Phlebia centrifuga (fungi): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlebia_centrifuga