Conservation & Ecological RestorationGabriel Runte
2020 The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Ecological Restoration
The Influence of Plant-Fungal Symbioses on the Establishment Potential of Pseudotsuga macrocarpa in Fire Scarred Areas
Gabriel Runte is a first-year master’s student in the Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work focuses on plant-associated microbes and their role in plant establishment and success. In the field, plants are filled with and surrounded by innumerable other organisms which contribute to vital functions, including mineral nutrient acquisition, infection resistance, and drought tolerance. Runte’s work aims to improve ecosystem management and restoration by helping to understand and harness these relationships. He focuses primarily on mycorrhizal fungi and foliar fungal endophytes, relating out-planted seedlings to the microbial communities they enter and investigating the microbial aspects of nurse plants.
The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Ecological Restoration
The Garden Club of America (the GCA) offers an annual Fellowship in Ecological Restoration. Established in 2000 with funds from the John B. Young Charitable Trust as well as GCA members and clubs, the fellowship’s goal is to support research that will advance knowledge and increase the number of scientists in the important field of ecological restoration, the active healing of the land. The $8,000 grant is awarded annually to exceptional graduate students to support specialized study in ecological restoration at an accredited U.S. university. Preference will be given to projects that include field research conducted in the United States. A panel of experts associated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum reviews the applications and makes recommendations to the GCA Scholarship Committee.
For the purposes of this scholarship, The Garden Club of America agrees to the definition of ecological restoration as stated by the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER).
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