Faculty/Staff Detail

Timothy J. Baroni, Biological Sciences Department, joined colleagues at the Instituto de Ecologia (INECOL) in Xalapa, Mexico, for two weeks of field research on biodiversity of macrofungi in Mexican forest preserves and special protected areas. Supported by a Faculty Research Program grant from SUNY Cortland, this was Baroni's second research trip to southeastern Mexico. Along with INECOL’s Victor Bandala and Leticia Montoya and several of their students, he visited and collected in tropical rainforest preserves in one of just a few remaining southern-most beech forests on the sides of an old volcano. A highlight of the trip was collecting in remnant Gymnopodium floribundum stands in Suchiapa. A good number of mycorrhizal fungi were found in this forest, confirming that the plant/fungus relationship is a new one for science. Several new species were found under these low-growing trees.