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Plant Biology

Conference

2018

Pepperdine University

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Does The Fungal Pathogen (Botryosphaeria Dothidea) Exceed The Dehydration Tolerance Of Its Chaparral Host?, Cristian M. Garcia Mar 2018

Does The Fungal Pathogen (Botryosphaeria Dothidea) Exceed The Dehydration Tolerance Of Its Chaparral Host?, Cristian M. Garcia

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

We tested the hypothesis that an opportunistic endophytic fungus Botryosphaeria dothidea that frequently infects and causes dieback in several different species of chaparral shrubs in the Santa Monica Mountains continues to elongate and grow in host tissues at dehydration levels that exceed host survival. This was done by collecting several large branches from the field from three dominant species of co-occurring chaparral shrubs, Malosma laurina, Ceanothus spinosus, and Ceanothus megacarpus. We allowed branches to dehydrate at increasing lengths of time, from a few days to one week, in an air-conditioned laboratory, then sealed in plastic bags to allow tissuewater equilibration, …


Testing For The Presence Of Botryosphaeria Dothidea In Branches Of Ceanothus Spinosus Undergoing Dieback, Katarina Carter Mar 2018

Testing For The Presence Of Botryosphaeria Dothidea In Branches Of Ceanothus Spinosus Undergoing Dieback, Katarina Carter

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Botryosphaeria dothidea is an opportunistic pathogen found in some of the cavitated branches of the chaparral vegetation in the Santa Monica Mountains. In this study, we focused on investigating the presence of Botryosphaeria dothidea in Ceanothus spinosus located on Pepperdine University’s campus. We wanted to test this hypothesis because we had observed a large amount of dieback in the Ceanothus spinosus population and wanted to identify a possible contributor. Because of the large number of cavitated branches in the Ceanothus spinosus we tested, we hypothesized that they contained fungus. To test this, we took twenty samples of twenty different Ceanothus …