Dennis Escolástico-Ortiz successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the population genomics, genotype/microbiome interaction and functional diversity of the bacteria  associated with the moss Racomitrium lanuginosum.  Dennis started a postdoc at Natural Resources Canada. We hope the best for Dennis ! Our lab has three new members. For the summer, we have the visit of Ève Gaubert from Université des Sciences et Technologies de Bordeaux (France). Eve will spend a month in the lab worki...

The Chocó-Darién region is one of the 25 global biodiversity hotspots.  Our lab was invited to do fieldwork in a remote area in Río Balsas, Darién. The project, spearheaded by Dr. Catherine Potvin (Mcgill University), aims at documenting this important biodiversity hotspot while sharing and exchanging knowledge with local Emberá communities. Dr. Potvin's team has established a long-term 15-ha plot in an old growth forest with trees of over 60 meters. With Adriel Sierra Pinilla we traveled...

El año 2023 fue un año transcendental para los panameños. Con gran preocupación por la falta de un plan detallado a largo plazo por parte de las autoridades locales, nosotros escribimos una nota al editor de la revista Nature. Nuestra nota hace eco sobre la nota escrita por el colega Iván Landires (y colaboradores) en la revista Science    Le traducimos nuestra nota en Nature: "Panamá se encuentra en una encrucijada de conservación de la biodiversidad y desarrollo económico. El...

Hot off the press ! We have just published the most comprehensive phylogenomic study of bryophytes. An effort born out the collaboration between the leaders of the goflag project and several North American, Latin American, European and Australian institutions. The goflag project is spearheaded by Gordon Burleigh, Stuart McDaniel, Christine Davis (U. of Florida), and Emily Sessa (New York Botanical Garden) and they developed a large number of loci (over 400) for all flagellate land plants ...

We lost the director of our Institute, Louis Bernatchez. Since my arrival to the IBIS in 2016, Louis showed extraordinary support.  He was also the best example of leadership I have seen so far. His intellectual contribution to science is astronomical and his passion and support for his students and staff are legendary.  We are all saddened by the loss of a giant. JC, September 29, 2023

Exciting news about our research regarding moss-symbiosis. Moss-bacterial communities have a core microbiome and bacteria recruited from environmental sources, and symbiotic N2-fixing bacteria contribute to the N budget in northern ecosystems through biological nitrogen fixation. This process may be affected by the abundance of diazotrophs and moss nutrient content. As part of his thesis research, Dennis Escolástico and collaborators (Jean-Philippe Bellenger, Charlotte Blasi, Nicolas De...

Nous avons des nouvelles de notre équipe de travail. Marta et Annie St-Louis ont fait un jour de vulgarisation sur les lichens à la Maison Léon Provancher. En plus, Philip vient de publier (voir pdf) des lichens del'Archipel-de-Mingan.  Philip a fait un entrevue sur la diversité et l'importance des lichens de la Côte-Nord. Bravo !! ------------ We have news from our lab. Marta and Annie St-Louis shared her passion and knowledge of lichens with the public at La Maison Léon Provanc...

This month we did fieldwork in the Parc des Grands Jardins and collected reindeer lichens (Cladonia stellaris) for whole genome sequencing. We got also great news, Lilisbeth del Carmen Rodríguez-Castro obtained a prestigious ELAP fellowship to visit the lab from August 2023-February 2024.  Lilisbeth will be working on the metagenomic assembly of bacterial epiphytes associated to the canopy gymnosperm, Zamia pseudoparasitica. Bravo Lilisbeth ! Finally, Adriel M. Sierra Pinilla was a...

From left to right:  Dennis, Alyson, JC, Marta, Philip, Chinedou, Laura, Adriel.

This week we have an invited speaker, Guillaume Chomicki. Guillaume has done some fantastic work on mutualism and plant-ant interactions. After his conference, we did a lab "field-trip" to the Québec National Parliament, a beautiful building with much history. We also enjoyed a sunny and warm spring day after a long gruelling winter.