Why are there so many species of Fungi?

The processes by which new species are created and maintained is central to evolutionary biology. Yet, we still lack a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms that maintain and give rise to the biodiversity all around us. My research is focused on understanding the drivers of fungal diversification through a genomic lens. I combine collections-based field work and cutting-edge genomic tools to study how differentiation of individual genes and populations give rise to macroevolutionary patterns.

Fungi, the third main branch of eukaryotic life, are ideal model organisms for speciation research. Fungi are widely distributed and hyper diverse (estimated 2.2-3.8 million species compared to ~435,000 species of plants and ~50,000 species of vertebrates), yet lack many of the intrinsic characteristics known to drive speciation in plants and animals, such as assortative mating. This suggests that the vast biodiversity of fungi is arising through fundamentally different processes than has been characterized in all other “classic” speciation model systems such as sticklebacks and monkey-flowers. My integrative research leverages the advantages of fungal systems to answer three fundamental questions about the fungal speciation process that pertain to all life; 1) what are the ecological and genomic forces that drive speciation in fungi, 2) What are the genetic underpinnings of the ectomycorrhizal-plant mutualism and the evolutionary drivers of host preference 3) what are the macroevolutionary process that drive divergence over long evolutionary time?