Evolutionary Ecology & Ecosystem Ecology 101: instructor perspectives on Duke’s required course for ecology PhDs

All Duke PhD students in ecology are required to enroll in a class entitled Ecological Perspectives: Evolution to Ecosystems. The syllabus covers two subdisciplines of ecology, taught collaboratively by faculty from each subdiscipline with no cross training. Only two out of 16 students identified with either subdiscipline. What did the instructors learn?

The Network Beneath Us: On the Discovery of Mycorrhizae and How They Shaped Our World

When plants made their foray onto land 460 million years ago, they weren’t alone; along with them evolved a new type of fungi, without which the first plants would likely not have survived. Fast forward to the present, and those same fungi now inhabit the roots of 80-90% of modern vascular land plants, offering nutrients in exchange for carbohydrates, with groups ranging from coveted truffles to species with newly discovered symbioses in the Mucoromycotina, previously thought to be only parasitic or saprophytic.