WNMU student Gabe Gilmore in a science lab on the Western New Mexico University campusSilver City, NM - Students in the Natural Sciences Department were recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant to research fungal communities at high altitudes in the Gila National Forest.
Gabe Gilmore, a senior majoring in forestry wildlife management, will be leading the research with other students and faculty this summer. The principal goal of the project is to compare fungal communities in Blue Gramma grass that exist above 7000 feet in elevation. The small team of researchers will be collecting specimens and conducting research in campus laboratories.
The grant provides Western New Mexico University students an opportunity to participate in research that is taking place at the national level and the campus proximity to the Gila National Forest makes the research uniquely fitting to students in the National Sciences program.
"This research will provide valuable data on how wild grasses are coping with continuing climate change," said Gilmore. "This may result in possible new management practices that could help not only wildlife, but domesticated food grasses."
The Blue Gramma is a wild grass; however, Gilmore connects the fungal communities in these grasses to those in other grasses consumed by humans.
"Most of the food we humans consume are also grasses including rice, wheat, rye and barley, and they make up the largest portion of the human diet worldwide," said Gilmore.
Gilmore and his team's research will take place at two location sites in the Gila National Forest. Plant tissues and the associated soil will be collected from a total of 20 plants that will be studied. The diversity of the fungi found within the tissues and soil of the collected plants will be assessed throughout the summer.
"This research is the cornerstone of my undergraduate career and as such will allow me to bring cutting edge genetic sequence techniques to WNMU for other student research projects," explained Gilmore. "It will open the door for other students to develop their own research as the university grows to become a research hub."
The specific fungal communities that will be researched are called Dark Septate Endophytes (DSE) that are colonized in over 600 plant species across the world. They are often more prevalent in stressful environments.