The guest speaker for our January 5th meeting will be Dr. Mary Ann Hawke. The meeting will be hosted in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park at 6:30 PM.
Dr. Hawke’s presentation is titled “The Hidden Life of Spores”
Spores of fungi are often used to help identify species, but we often don’t give them another thought. Much like the pollen and seeds of higher plants, spores are ingeniously designed for dispersal and survival in harsh environments. Did you ever wonder why spore prints are different colors? Or think about what spores are made of? Or question why they come in such an array of interesting shapes and sizes? Please join us for this journey inside the remarkable hidden life of spores.
Brief Bio:
Dr. Mary Ann Hawke is trained as a plant ecologist and environmental educator, and she is currently working at UCSD at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography on a mycology project. Her interest in fungi began when she did her Ph.D. on soil-plant-microbe interactions in a plant pathology lab at Agriculture Canada. Since then, her work has focused on native plants, ecological health, climate change, and citizen science. She co-founded and was Director of the San Diego County Plant Atlas at the San Diego Natural History Museum, an NSF-funded citizen science project that trained community volunteers to document the floristic diversity of this important biodiversity hotspot. She is also one of the co-founders and organizers of the San Diego Citizen Science Network that was created in 2012 to foster citizen science in our region.
Pre-Meeting Dinner:
Join us before the meeting at 5 PM as we treat our guest speaker to dinner at Soltan Banoo, 4645 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA 92116.