This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The immense importance of fungi in the functioning and maintenance of ecological processes in nature is unquestioned, but our knowledge of their biodiversity is far from being complete. Tropical forests are thought to be the terrestrial ecosystems characterized by the highest fungal biodiversity, but a major portion of this biodiversity has yet to be documented. This project provides the opportunity, during each of three summers, for at least four undergraduate and/or graduate students to spend a month carrying out biodiversity studies of fungi and fungus-like organisms associated with tropical forests in northern Thailand as research projects. In Thailand, the students will interact with scientists and graduate students at Chiang Mai University, Mae Fah Luang University and the Mushroom Research Centre.
Student participants will be selected from a pool of applicants that will come from universities throughout the United States. The international aspects of the project are expected to represent an extraordinary training/educational experience for these students, since the interaction with their student counterparts in Thailand will involve sharing the same accommodations, joint field work at study sites in northern Thailand and laboratory-based sessions during which they will work together on processing and analyzing samples and data.
