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Drivers And Consequences Of Carbon Use Efficiency - And Its Measurement In Soil, Grace Pold Oct 2019

Drivers And Consequences Of Carbon Use Efficiency - And Its Measurement In Soil, Grace Pold

Doctoral Dissertations

Soils serve as massive carbon sinks, but their ability to continue this ecological service is contingent on how the resident soil microbial community will respond to the ongoing climate crisis. One key dimension of the microbial response to warming is its carbon use efficiency (CUE), or the fraction of carbon taken up by an organism which is allocated to growth rather than respiration. However, the scientific community is still in the early stages of understanding the drivers, consequences - and even accurate measurements of - CUE. In this dissertation, I first quantified the variability of CUE and its responsiveness to …


Detection, Diversity, And Evolution Of Fungal Nitric Oxide Reductases (P450nor), Steven Adam Higgins Aug 2017

Detection, Diversity, And Evolution Of Fungal Nitric Oxide Reductases (P450nor), Steven Adam Higgins

Doctoral Dissertations

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a gas responsible for significant ozone layer depletion and contributes to greenhouse effects in Earth’s atmosphere. N2O is primarily generated by denitrification, whereby nitrate (NO3-) or nitrite (NO2-) is converted to gaseous N2O or N2. Teragram quantities of N2O are emitted annually from agricultural soils treated with nitrogenous fertilizers due to the activity of soil microbiota. Although bacteria and fungi harbor genes permitting denitrification, fungi lack NosZ, an enzyme responsible for reducing N2O into inert N2 gas. Historically, scientists have linked fungi …


Systematics, Diversification, And Functional Diversity Of Russulaceae (Russulales), Brian Patrick Looney May 2017

Systematics, Diversification, And Functional Diversity Of Russulaceae (Russulales), Brian Patrick Looney

Doctoral Dissertations

The family Russulaceae is an iconic family of mushroom-forming Basidiomycetes both because of their importance as edible mushrooms in many parts of the world and their species richness in both temperate and tropical forested biomes. While much mycological research has been focused on this group, recent systematic and ecological research has failed to develop a comprehensive or cohesive organization by which to understand the evolutionary relationships, patterns of diversification, or functional importance of the group. Recently, interest in ectomycorrhizal fungi (EmF), of which Russulaceae is a key lineage, has greatly increased due to the recognition of the importance of EmF …


Expansion Of And Reclassification Within The Family Lachnospiraceae, Kelly N. Haas Nov 2016

Expansion Of And Reclassification Within The Family Lachnospiraceae, Kelly N. Haas

Doctoral Dissertations

Many of the taxa in the family Lachnospiraceae are currently misclassified as Clostridium spp. Here attempt to rectify many of these issues, beginning with an in-depth genomic and physiologic analysis of Clostridium methoxybenzovorans, culminating in the assertion that is a heterotype of Clostridium indolis, followed by reclassification of the broader group in which this organism resides. We propose two novel genera, Lacriformis and Enterocloster, to reclassify this clade, this includes reclassification of Clostridium sphenoides, Clostridium indolis, Clostridium saccharolyticum, Clostridium celerecrescens, Clostridium xylanolyticum, Clostridium algidixylanolyticum, Clostridium aerotolerans, Clostridium amygdalinum, and …