FABI celebrated the successful completion of another PhD, with Mathew Harris presenting his prestige seminar on 14 August to a full auditorium. His PhD project “Spatial patterns of C₄ grass-associated fungal endophyte communities” was completed under the supervision of Prof. Michelle Greve, Prof. Bernard Slippers and Dr Martin Kemler of the University of Hamburg, Germany. The external examiners for his thesis were Prof. Audrius Menkis (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden), Prof. Brody Sandel (Santa Clara University, United States of America), and Prof. Jana U’Ren (Washington State University, United States of America).

The diversity of micro-organisms in tropical and sub-tropical grassy biomes has received scant attention in many parts of the world. Mathew’s PhD study aimed to fill some of these gaps by exploring the patterns and the factors that shaped the diversity and composition of foliar fungal endophytes associated with two widely- distributed, keystone C₄ grasses, sampled within tropical and sub-tropical grassy biomes at local, continental and international scales.

This thesis advances our understanding of the factors that shape the diversity and composition of foliar fungal endophytes across different spatial scales, adding value sampling from under-represented tropical and sub-tropical grassy biomes.