ungus Fusarium oxysporum causes devastating wilt diseases of many important crop plants including banana/plantain, cotton, potato, tomato, capsicum, beans, peas, chickpeas and melons. However, individual pathogenic isolates of F. oxysporum are highly specific for a particular species of host plant.

The aim of this project is to identify mechanisms that contribute to highly efficient biological nitrogen fixation in legumes through symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, including under future climate change scenarios.

Fungi produce many biological active compounds. What are they and what do they do?

Listed below is an example of projects available in the Solomon Lab. Please contact Peter to discuss these further or other possibilities (note that the skills gained in the project are shown in brackets after the project)

We constantly try to identify new proteins that are involved in plant immunity, and use molecular techniques to understand their interaction partners and how they work together. The sorts of proteins we are interested are pathogen receptors, components of signal transduction pathways that elaborate the immune response, and pathogen virulence molecules called effectors that seek to destroy immunity. We use cutting edge biochemical techniques including high resolution mass spectrometry to perform these studies. It is a fascinating area because the pathogens always seek to evolve new proteins to overcome host immunity, and the plants must change their receptors and use innovative mechanisms to trap the pathogens.

The proposed PhD research program will use the relationship between the orchid genera Chiloglottis and Arthrochilus and their obligate mycorrhizae to examine speciation in co-evolved taxa. It has been suggested the evolution of the recently diverged Chiloglottis may be attributable to its association with a particular mycorrhizal species however evolution of this sexually-deceptive orchid genus is known to be influenced by a species-specific pollinator relationship