Hey all. This is Natalie Francis reporting back again from the Peay Lab. Since my last post, I have returned to the important niche of fungal ecology known as ectomychorrizal associations with graduate student Laura. As I wrote about in my last post, ectomycorrhiza are fungal symbionts with plant roots that uptake nitrogen from the soil which they exchange for carbon from their plant hosts. Unlike last summer, when I helped Laura to process her samples in the data collection phase of her project, this summer I have been assisting her in the process of designing and developing her procedure and experimental design for a new project. For her latest project on mycorrhiza, she wants to know how Thelephora terrestris, a notorious generalist capable of having symbiotic relationships with a wide variety of phylogenetically distinct plants, behaves in the presence of five different…