Insect-Fungus Interactions: What Makes Them So Intricate? | A Researcher Explains
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we connect with Henrik H. De Fine Licht, an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. Here, his research currently focuses on co-evolution in mutualistic and parasitic interactions – a fascinating subject yet to be fully understood by scientists.
Henrik is an evolutionary biologist that has distinct interests in evolutionary ecology and fungal genetics. How do fungi interact with insects, and what makes this interaction so intriguing? Henrik brings to light some facts that may surprise you…
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In this conversation, we cover:
- The various social insects that cultivate fungi for food.
- How fungi are able to manipulate the behavior of their hosts.
- What happens when fungi attach to insects, and how the infection progresses.
- Examples of host shifts in pathogenic fungi.
To find out more about Henrik and his work, click here now!
Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/30PvU9C
Transcript
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| 1:18.6 | the geniuses. This is the Finding Genius Podcast. Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the |
| 1:28.8 | Finding Genius Podcast, now part of the Finding Genius Foundation. I guess today is Henrik |
| 1:33.4 | Daphine Nick, PhD. He's a research group leader and associate professor at University of Copenhagen |
| 1:38.5 | in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. We're going to talk about what's called |
| 1:42.3 | host versus pathogen evolution and insect versus pathogenic fungi. So Henrik, thanks for coming. |
| 1:48.0 | Yeah, no, thank you for having me. Do you want to tell me a bit about your background? |
| 1:51.1 | And then I want to ask you about your current research. Sure, I'm a biologist by training, |
| 1:55.8 | and I've always actually been fascinated by social insects. So I came a little bit backwards |
| 2:01.4 | into this interesting field of fungi. And during my studies, I stumbled across these fascinating |
| 2:08.8 | social insects like ants and termites that cultivate fungi for food, sort of fungus growing |
... |
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