On April 9th, an important former member of the Hulcr Lab will be presenting a summary of his work with this lab starting at 12 pm in the McGuire Center at the University of Florida.The presentation by Dr. Craig Bateman, entitled “The Diversity and Function of the Ambrosia Symbiosis,” will describe some of the ground-breaking work conducted by Bateman and Dr. Jiri Hulcr starting in the early formation of the lab.
Bateman published 19 papers during his time with the lab while beginning a process of using phylogenetics, community sequencing and culturing to establish the fidelity between ambrosia beetles and their fungi, across all 14 clades of ambrosia beetles.
Bateman also helped to innovate the lab’s current practice of conducting pre-invasion assessments to identify likely invasive species years before they become invasive. Much of the lab’s funding now comes from grants for pre-invasion assessments from government agencies including the USDA, APHIS and the USDA Forest Service.