Kim
Ryall
Education:
B.A. (Honours) in English Literature, University
of British Columbia, 1997
B.Sc. in Plant Biology, University of British Columbia,
2001
Research interests:
I study fungal endophytes of mosses, which are fungi that live asymptomatically inside plants. While we are beginning to understand how endophytes contribute to fungal diversity, and whether or not they are host specific, very little is known about the physiology of endophyte-host relationships. They might be mutualists or parasites, latent pathogens or saprobes. I plan to use complementary field and experimental approaches to begin to address the question of what endophytes are doing inside plants. Mosses are an excellent model system for asking these types of questions. My dissertation will have three main parts. First, I will sample the major lineages of mosses to estimate the diversity of fungal endophytes that associate with mosses, and compare that with other lineages of land plants. Second, I will investigate whether endophytes show host specificity, using both descriptive and experimental approaches. Third, I will use ecophysiological methods to determine the degree to which endophytes benefit or harm their hosts.
Publications:
Ryall, K., J. Whitton, W.B. Schofield, S.M. Ellis, and A.J. Shaw. 2005. Molecular Phylogenetic Study of Interspecific Variation in the Moss Isothecium (Brachytheciaceae). Systematic Botany 30: 242-247.
Ryall, K., JT Harper, PJ Keeling. 2003. Plastid-derived Type II fatty acid biosynthetic enzymes in chromists. Gene 313: 139-148.
Links to other labs I have worked in:
Whitton lab at UBC http://www.botany.ubc.ca/people/whitton.htm
Bryology webpage at UBC http://www.botany.ubc.ca/bryophyte
Keeling lab at UBC http://www.botany.ubc.ca/keeling/Index.html
Collaborators:
Awards:
Kim received a Canadian NSERC grant to support her graduate work at Duke, and also received two of Duke's highly competitive fellowships: the James B. Duke Award, and the University Scholars Program Award.
Shaw Laboratory
139
Biological Sciences Bldg.
Box 90338
Department of Biology
Duke University
Durham
North Carolina 27708
U.S.A.
Phone: (+1) 919
660-7345
Fax: (+1) 919 660-7293