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The Hynson and Yuan Labs (https://smil.bio/about/) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa are seeking a highly motivated post-doctoral researcher to work on a National Science Foundation and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation-funded postdoc. The research projects will be flexible under the umbrella of fungal ecology, including topics such as identifying traits of microbiome stability and community assembly rules through manipulative experimentation, mathematical modeling of microbial community dynamics, and co-evolution of fungi with their Hawaiian endemic hosts. The postdoc will be based in Honolulu, HI at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Applicants should have expertise in one or more of the listed areas:

• Microbial ecology, with experience generating and analyzing high throughput -omics data.

• Fungal ecology and/or evolution including field and/or lab-based studies.

• Theoretical ecology and/or evolution.

Potential projects will be developed in collaboration with the incumbent postdoctoral researcher, but could include manipulative, observational and or computational experimental designs to understand: 1) fundamental traits of microbial keystone taxa and community assembly rules, 2) development of novel algebraic methods, such as networks, for identifying important microbiome members from diverse consortia, 3) examining the potential for co-evolution between Hawaiian fungi, endemic host plants and invertebrates, 4) landscape microbial ecology.

Check out this new publication in Nature led by SPUN (The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) that Dr. Hynson contributed to. Take home message is that we’re doing a poor job of conserving mycorrhizal fungal diversity.

What’s more fun than field work with kangaroos and hard hats! Not much! This summer Dr. Hynson and the Department of Energy research team FACE-FUN (Free Air Carbon Enrichment and Fungal Underground Networks) went to sample soils and roots in the Euc-FACE – the only dry forest carbon enrichment experiment on the planet. Despite some minor weather-caused set backs, it was a success. We’re now analyzing these samples for changes in fungal communities under CO2 enrichment.

This summer Dr. Hynson in her role as the Director for the Center for Microbiome Analysis through Island Knowledge and Investigation (C-MAIKI) attended the 3rd annual Microbiome Centers Consortium meeting at the University of California Irvine. There, Directors of microbiome centers from across the US meet to synergize the field of microbiome research and chart the future of the field.

Congrats to Renee who just graduated from the Global Environmental Studies program and successfully completed her undergraduate thesis on mosquito-fungal interactions. We’ll miss you!

Check out this cool new paper in New Phytologist that came out of the NSF IRES course Dr. Hynson co-taught in Australia. Way to go students!