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Greg Mueller - Costa Rica, Central America
Dispatches


Dr. Greg Mueller, Ph.D.







Curator of Fungi and Chair of the Department of Botany, The Field Museum

I’ve always been interested in nature and how things interact with each other. As a child in a large family (5 boys) our family vacations were usually camping trips. I wanted to grow up to be a Forest Ranger. In college at Southern Illinois University, I became exposed to Botany and then met a professor who studied fungi. It was that professor who introduced me to the incredible world of fungi and who started me on my profession. I completed a Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee before spending 7 months in Uppsala Sweden as a Visiting Scientist. Then I came to The Field Museum in 1985 from The University of Washington in Seattle were I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate.

I work on the biology and ecology of fungi, especially mushrooms. My work is providing vital information for the management and conservation of temperate and tropical forests, particularly in the Chicago region, Costa Rica, and China. My research helps determine what fungi occur in different types of forests and grasslands in different parts of the world and what ecological role these fungi are playing, for example which mushrooms pair with which trees to make reforestation of tropical forests more effective and to better manage remaining undisturbed forests. Interactions between trees and symbiotic mushrooms are vital for the survival of both: the mushrooms greatly increase the tree's ability to absorb water and nutrients, while the tree passes on excess food to the mushroom. Other fungi are critically important as nature’s recyclers by decomposing dead wood, leaves, animals, and other fungi. I also study the impact of human activities (i.e. air pollution, fire as a management tool) on fungi and how changes in fungal communities may affect the plants in forests and grasslands.

My research program consists of an active fieldwork component as well as laboratory studies. Some of the laboratory work includes using computer-aided light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to examine features of the fungi invisible without high magnification; chemical analyses to detect if the chemical composition of the fungi have changed over time due to air pollution, DNA sequencing to examine genetic differences among these fungi and to try to uncover their evolutionary relationships (family trees). These different types of analyses help me to correctly identify species, understand their ecology, and understand relationships and worldwide distributions of these critically important and very common organisms.

To learn more about Greg, you can review his Curriculum Vitae (CV).

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