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Joseph
B. Morton
Professor and Curator
Division of Plant and Soil Sciences
1090 Agricultural Sciences Building
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506-6108
Phone: 304-293-8836
Email: jbmorton@mail.wvu.edu
B.S., 1971, Botany, Montana
State University
1971-1975, U.S.A.F. Security Service, Arabic Interpreter
Ph.D., 1979, Plant Pathology, Montana State University
1979-1980, Plant Breeder/Pathologist, Cargill Seed Company
I began research on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in 1981, a year after starting at WVU. At that time, I was unable to distinguish (or even recognize) spores of different fungi extracted from field soils. A visit to the lab of Barb Hetrick in 1982 changed all that, and thereafter I saw the light (and the spores) and discovered a wider range of species diversity in Appalachia. My entry in taxonomy was serendipitous, since four of the five most abundant sporulating fungi in acid minesoils around Morgantown were thought to be undescribed. The fifth, Glomus occultum, was the bane of my early culture efforts because it contaminated everything. It wasn't long before I was trapping fungi from many different soils, and established a fairly extensive collection of fungi from the northeastern U.S. In the interim, I became frustrated by the taxonomic system widely adopted in the early 1980's since it was not based on evolutionary patterns or processes. My efforts to integrate alpha taxonomy and evolutionary theory became my greatest (and most exciting) challenge. It was in this arena that the culture collection provided an invaluable resource of germ plasm with which to make key comparisons. I felt that mycorrhizal research had reached the point where work on the fungal associate needed more attention, and thereafter placed more emphasis on the culture collection.
An important question for the collection was: Could an empirically sound species concept be developed from morphological characters, that would provide a robust hypothesis for comparisons among molecular characters? This question required a shift of emphasis from the study of only mature spores to an investigation of developmental patterns. I belatedly realized (already well recognized by botanists and zoologists) that ontogenetic comparisons provided an empirical basis for character analysis. Work was started with selected species of Scutellospora because of their complexity and followed with species of Gigaspora to round out one family (Gigasporaceae) and then shifted to Glomus and Acaulospora (with the help of Sidney Stürmer) . From these data, we established reference cultures) linked to named and unnamed species. Since then we have developed an extensive sequence library of the nr25S rRNA gene, primarily for phylogenetic analysis but also to test the boundaries of interspecific variation at the molecular level. Our ultimate goal is to determine congruence of characters at different scales and thereby develop a true measure of phylogenetic relationships amongst AM fungal taxa.
Other projects closely linked to germ plasm acquisition and characterization included: (i) developing an extensive library of fatty acid methyl ester profiles (in collaboration with Jim Graham at the University of Florida, and implemented by Steve Bentivenga) and (ii) recovering nonsporulating arbuscular fungi from arid sites (with Jean Stutz at Arizona State University), old plant communities (with Jim Bever, a post-doctoral associate from Duke University visiting our lab), and minesoils reclaimed to several agricultural and horticultural crops (with Kelly Heldreth) using various trapping procedures, and more recently (iii) characterizing AM fungi in a range of disturbed and remnant prairie and grassland communities throughout the United States to test several hypotheses regarding how we interpret diversity, and (iv) establishing more complete and meaningful criteria that define species of AM fungi.
I have developed a strong interest in computerized databases and electronic keys to assist in rapid species identification and diagnosis. My first programming efforts ran the gamut from Omnis 7 to Microsoft Access and finally to Oracle and FileMaker Pro (for cross-platform compatibility since we use both PCs and Macs). We now have databases on active/stored cultures, accession information, collection clientele, systematics, and biogeographic information.
While INVAM may be considered the ultimate hobby (its quite a collection, by any standard), my other growing collection is music CDs. After visiting Vancouver, B.C., I developed a strong affinity for Celtic music; no surprise, since bluegrass music so widespread and popular in WV has Celtic origins. I am an avid photographer as well, and the digital revolution keeps me quite busy learning all the intricacies of Photoshop and digital management software! Since we moved into the country and energy prices continued to escalate, I had an outside wood-burning furnace installed and I spend a lot of my free time cutting, hauling, and stacking wood.