News article

The 2013 recipient of the Quinivic/Coastal Restoration Trust study award, Renee Johansen is currently being hosted at North Carolina’s Duke University and continuing her research examining root fungi in marram and spinifex. She has been travelling extensively, collecting root samples from marram in California and most recently, the United Kingdom. Renee has provided us with an update on her work:

Perhaps the biggest lesson I have learnt during the first two years of my PhD is that research is an inherently unpredictable activity, in terms of both what will be discovered, and the time that discovery can take! Extending my time in the US by twelve months has enabled me to change the focus of my project in response to fast moving technological developments in my field and to my own early discoveries. While I am still using DNA sequencing to look at whether fungal communities in dune grass roots differ by host plant species, I have broadened my survey of fungal diversity in marram to include samples from the plant’s native range. Now, comparing fungal diversity in different countries is a major focus of my project and I will be taking a more thorough look at whether New Zealand is likely to harbour endemic fungal species in the dune environment. In June I visited the United Kingdom, travelling by bus and train up the west coast from Devon through Wales to Liverpool, collecting marram roots from seven different sites. This coastal zone suffered heavy storm damage during the last northern hemisphere winter and many of the fore dune systems lost several meters from the dune toe. Fortunately I was able to find systems which were extensive enough to retain good quantities of marram, and in some cases the remaining marram seemed to be benefiting from partial burial by the large quantities of sand delivered to some areas by the storms. These plants had lots of young, vigorous growth. It was great to witness the dynamic nature of the coastal environment first hand, mix with lots of coastal enthusiasts who volunteered to work on the project, and add to my sample collection which now numbers 392 root sections from four dune grasses and three countries.

My current greatest challenge is optimizing my DNA sequencing methods in order to get the best possible information from those samples. I will be working on this for the next two months before heading home to further explore the fungal diversity in New Zealand dunes. Preliminary results from the pilot study I did at Anawhata in Auckland’s Waitakere ranges before I left show that spinifex supports a wide range of beneficial root dwelling fungi – some known from dunes elsewhere in the world, and some which are probably new to science. Some of these may be endemic to New Zealand. I plan to gather more genetic information for these fungi, and hope to look at their morphology as well, with a view to formally describing them. I am also looking forward to presenting at the next Coastal Restoration Trust conference.