Conversations like you're about to hear do not happen unless you support In Defensive Plants.

And now more than ever, we need conversations like this to reach as many ears as possible.

One of the best ways to help keep In Defensive Plants up and running is to become a patron over at patreon.com slash In Defensive Plants.

In return for a tiny bit of support each month, you will get access to a completely separate podcasts.

It explores a lot of really fun gardening topics, everything from seed collection and storage

to growing native plants, the struggles of trying to garden in different climates, and so much

more. It's a heck of a lot of fun. We're learning so much, and we're trying to share that with you.

So come on and join the Patreon over at patreon.com slash indefensive plants and help keep this show up and running in the process. I hope to see you over there. But in the meantime, on with the show. Hello everyone and welcome to the Indefensive Plants podcast, the official podcast of indefensiveplants.com. What's up? This is your host, Matt. Welcome to the show. How is everyone doing this week? I'm doing

great because we are exploring the world of restoring desert ecosystems and how microbes like

microisal fungi can play an important role in that process. Joining us to talk about this is Ali Schusler

from the Desert Botanical Garden, who is involved in some incredible work trying to understand the relationships between native riparian trees, invasive trees, degraded soils,

and how microbes can help bring the pieces of nature back together.

This is such a fascinating discussion, so I don't want to keep you from it any longer.

Without further ado, here's my conversation with Ali Schusler.

I hope you enjoy.

Music Without further ado, here's my conversation with Ali Shoesler. I hope you enjoy. All right, Ali Shoesler, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to talk to you today, but first

let's start off with an introduction. Tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what it is you do.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. So as you said, my name's Ali Schusler, and I'm currently working at

the Desert Botanical Garden here in Phoenix, where I manage two of our laboratories, both the molecular

biology and then plant physiology. And what I'm really interested with my personal research at the

moment is succulent plants and kind of finding what their heat tipping points are, their drought

tipping points, and if fungi can aid in this. But a lot of my work has been with riparian plants throughout

...