Emily Wolfe (Evergreen grad ’16) just published research that she started in the Evergreen program “Environmental Analysis, 2014-15” in the journal Oikos. The research shows that a fungal endophyte, Rhytisma punctatum, which infects bigleaf maple leaves as big black “tarspots” can influence the rate at which the leaf decomposes and can alter the in-stream microbial (bacterial and fungal) communities. Emily learned leaf litter methodology and then went on to do amplicon sequencing of the microbial community growing on the leaves. She is now enrolled as a PhD candidate at Portland State University and is doing her dissertation on endophytes more broadly. She credits her time in EA and as a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF) while at Evergreen with giving her the tools to succeed in graduate school.
You can find the paper at the publisher’s website: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/oik.05619
You can request a .pdf of the paper by writing to leroyc [at] evergreen [dot] edu.