This event is part of our ongoing Tuesday Lunch Seminar Series.

Fungi are ubiquitous on the planet and continuously regulate ecosystem function and productivity. Accordingly, extensive research connects most of fungal diversification and adaptation to sustained reliance on phototrophs in surface systems. The Deep Earth Biosphere, however, is now estimated to contain a majority of the planet’s microbial cells. Despite fungi presumably inhabiting the Deep Earth for hundreds of millions of years, little is known about subsurface fungi, and micro-eukaryotes more broadly. As an exclusively microbial ecosystem void of ongoing photosynthetic input, investigation of the Deep Subsurface Biosphere enables examination of the presumed innate qualities of kingdom Fungi, and eukaryotes more broadly.