This award provides travel support to Tasmania, Australia, for Gary A. Laursen of the University of Alaska - Fairbanks and Steven L. Stephenson of Fairmont State College in West Virginia. The two American investigators will be collaborating with Dr. Rodney D. Seppelt of the Australian Government Antarctic Division in conducting a survey of the four major groups of fungi on subantarctic Macquarie Island located between Tasmania and the Antarctic continent. The fungal diversity of Macquarie Island is little known. The occurrence data to be generated through this study will allow characterization of fungal assemblages, habitat associations, ecological relationships and biogeographic patterns, with comparison to northern hemisphere high latitude fungal assemblages. Collections gathered during this work, an invaluable resource for future study, will be suitably housed at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and at the Australian Antarctic Division in Tasmania. At Fairmont State College several students will assist in preparing and monitoring cultures of dictyostelids and myxomycetes and in maintaining herbarium specimens.
