Date: Saturday 02/11/2017 - 09:00 -  17:00

Although most organisms compete with each other for survival, some choose collaboration as their life strategy. The GoLife (and Peltigera) team from the Lutzoni lab put on an exhibit entitled “The power of collaboration: symbioses between fungi and plants” for the Darwin Day event at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC. Francois Lutzoni and the lab members (Ko-Hsuan Chen, Nicolas Magain, Jade Liu, and Jolanta Miadlikowska) presented examples involving fungi associated with different groups of photosynthetic partners (e.g., mycorrhizae and endophytic fungi with plants, and lichen-forming fungi with green algae and cyanobacteria) using microscopes, live specimens, fungal cultures and a poster. Kids (and adults) were learning about lichen symbiosis by playing with custom made puzzles and coloring books. A crowd of all ages showed great interest in our displays.