Innovation Anthology #540:

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For her part in the Aurora Capping Study, Dr. Justine Karst is researching the role of fungi in the successful reclamation of boreal forests.

Dr. Karst is a research associate in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta.

As she explained at the recent CONRAD Symposium on oil sands reclamation, ectomycorrhizal fungi colonize tree roots, forming a symbiotic relationship to draw nutrients from the soil.

DR JUSTINE KARST: We know already that they are really important for seedling survival, for seedling growth. There’s lots and lots of research demonstrating their importance in that area. And so as soon as you are talking about reclamation and revegetation in the boreal forest, and most of the species that we are using are all common to the boreal forest, that immediately launches into ideas of ectomycorrhizal fungi or the minimum that you have to be thinking about ectomycorrhizal fungi and thinking about not only restoring just the trees that make up the forest, but also all these other components, all these other interactions, that are really important to maintaining the trees and that forest. So the ectomycorrhizal fungi are a critical component to forests.

Dr. Karst depends on molecular techniques to identify and measure the tiny ectomycorrhizal fungi.

Thanks today to Syncrude.

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Syncrude

Program Date: 2013-03-07