Assessing Zinc Tolerance in Fungi of Colorado

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Presenter(s)

Cody Lewis

Abstract or Description

Soil heavy metal contamination due to anthropogenic activity negatively impacts organisms (1). Finding native metal tolerant fungi can assist in habitat recovery, which is direly needed given the history of mining and the contamination in the American West. Previous work has shown Fungi in Europe to have evolved tolerance to several metals and protect their pine partners from soil toxicity (2). Twenty-nine isolates of Coloradoan fungi were grown in Zinc gradient media to assess their tolerance to metal concentrations. Using multiple species from the Suillus genus, isolates were measured for growth after 14 days and compared to the growth of controls. I identified multiple isolates of different species that were tolerant to high zinc levels and multiple isolates from those same species that were sensitive to the same concentrations. These findings suggest possible candidates for future comparative genetic research. Identifying additional tolerant and sensitive isolates will allow our lab to genetically compare the mechanisms evolved for zinc tolerance across and within species of Suillus. In the future, we will assess whether tolerance to other metals such as copper and nickel also evolved in Suillus from Colorado and pave the way for comparative studies addressing the mechanisms of fungal soil metal tolerance.