Graduate student awarded College of Agricultural Sciences Graduate Student Competitive Grant

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Caylon Yates, a graduate student in the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and in the Ecology Intercollege Graduate Degree Program within the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, has been selected as one of the recipients for the 2020-21 College of Agricultural Sciences Graduate Student Competitive Grant Program.  

The program is sponsored by the Office for Research and Graduate Education and provides a unique opportunity for graduate students advised by faculty in the College. The program serves as professional development for graduate students in the College by providing funds to support master or doctoral research. 

Yates' proposal was one of 10 proposals to be awarded funding and was amongst a total of 28 proposals submitted to the College. A summary of his proposal can be found below.  

Most land plants form symbioses with mycorrhizal fungi. The type of symbioses, arbuscular or ectomycorrhizal, can be used to predict changing ecological processes. How these associations shape microbial decomposer composition and the effect this has on nutrient dynamics is not fully understood. We may be able to link microbiome structure to nitrogen dynamics in leaf litter by monitoring microbial composition and litter nitrogen content in decomposing litter of trees with differing mycorrhizal associations. In a 25-year-old common garden experiment, we will decompose leaf litter from 10 tree species, differing in mycorrhizal type, in soil surrounding the original tree species and in soil of the other 9 tree species. Following a 6-month incubation, we will analyze the nitrogen content of the decomposed litter to examine the divergent nitrogen dynamics between litter of the two mycorrhizal types. 

Yates is advised by Terrence Bell, assistant professor of phytobiomes in the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology.