Katherine Drotos

 

I completed my B.Sc. in Biodiversity at the University of Guelph. My honours thesis investigated whether lichens demonstrate a specificity for substrate and which substrates have the most specific lichens associated with them. I compiled a dataset from three herbaria across North America using location and substrate data for 90,000+ specimens. My current graduate work looks to characterize lichen mycobiont genomes. What happens to the fungal genome when it becomes lichenized? How and why has this strategy evolved so many times in the fungal phylogeny? Do the genomes of all these lichenized lineages look the same? These are some of the questions I ask utilizing a number of methods, including genome size analysis. During both my undergrad and grad programs I have had the opportunity to participate in a number of diversity surveys for lichens, including the Ontario Bioblitz (2013-2016) and park surveys, as well as volunteering in the herbarium at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario.