Manoomin mycobiomes. The Klymiuk Lab is currently leading discovery science (basic research) of root- and rhizosphere fungal diversity associated with wild rice in traditionally-harvested rice lakes, ‘wild’ stands, and agricultural settings. We currently partner with IISD-ELA (Vince Palace’s lab) U Minnesota (Jenny Kimball’s lab), and USask (Tim Sharbel’s lab), and colleagues here at UManitoba (Mark Hanson’s stress ecology lab, Matt Bakker’s crop pathogens lab) to understand how population structure, genetic diversity, and ecosystem dynamics relate to plant-fungal interactions in this culturally-important plant.
Climate-adaptive, Indigenous-led agricultural interventions. Under the auspices of the Reimagining Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Social Justice program (supported by the New Frontiers in Research Fund – International), the Klymiuk Lab is working alongside Indigenous communities and Indigenous-led industry partners to explore circular economy models that integrate wild rice and local-scale traditional medicines with inland (facilities-based) aquaculture. Part of this vision is to aid in developing sustainable sovereign economic opportunities, in a framework that promotes conservation, cultural revitalization, and adaptation to localized impacts of climate change (e.g., marginalization of arable land by increased flooding or saltwater incursion).
Comparative ecology. Ironically, most of what we know about the ecology of plant-fungal interactions, and mycorrhization in particular, has been developed through studies in subaerially-exposed field, grassland, and forest soils, whereas the fossil record of plant-fungal interaction is heavily tilted to plants that lived and were fossilized in wetlands.  Such inundated soils, however, are subject to a suite of abiotic and biotic drivers not paralleled in subaerial soils.  Our current NSERC-funded research program focuses on exploring mycobiomes in biogeochemically-appropriate modern analogues for fossil assemblages, i.e., wetland plants and hydric soils, to better contextualize plant-fungal interactions in the fossil record through comparative ecology.  Simultaneously, these inquiries establish a framework for future ecological investigations of contemporary wetlands, developing baseline data for diversity and abiotic drivers in these systems.

1. Mycobiome host-specificity across hydrologic, biogeochemical, and climatic gradients. In subaerial soils, biogeographic distribution of glomalean mycorrhizal fungi appears to be broad, with local distribution mediated by specificity to host plants. Preliminary community composition data suggests mycobiomes of wetland plants may be relatively cosmopolitan as well, although it is not yet known if they display host specificity.  Surveys (2023-ongoing) will determine if host plant species identity contributes to localized structuring of mycobiome communities, as in subaerial soils, and will initially evaluate whether species composition of root mycobiomes varies significantly i) between host plants ii) across hydrologic gradients, and iii) across geographic gradients.
2. Rhizosphere spore banks of hydric soils.  Wetland soils contain robust spore banks of mycorrhizal fungi; the extent to which spore banks also reflect saprotrophic and endophytic communities of wetland plants has yet to be ascertained across hydrologic and biogeochemical gradients. Similarly, it is uncertain whether root mycobiome communities are a census of all potential constituents within a given spore bank. Anoxia suppresses spore germination, but spores may remain viable for decades, so periodic de-watering or flooding events may introduce taxa to the spore bank which are not present in mycobiomes of growing wetland plants. The spore bank may thus provide a census of the drainage basin, with the wetland plant mycobiome a subset of the total diversity. Sequencing of cored soils will assess whether spore bank diversity i) varies across hydrologic gradients, ii) are more or less diverse than root mycobiome communities, and iii) whether the bioturbated root zone contains a less diverse spore assemblage than inactive soils below.  These data are important for understanding disturbance and resilience in wetland mycobiomes and may be of utility in remediation or restoration of plant communities in anthropogenically-altered sites.
3. Culturable components of plant mycobiomes.  Culturing provides a source of data independent of metagenomic assays, while creating opportunity to investigate individual plant-fungal interactions or understand fungal species traits. A culture library of free-living (saprotrophic and endophytic) fungi, as well as obligate plant mutualist (arbuscular mycorrhizal) fungi is being developed to facilitate research objectives on 10 and 15-year timelines: a) assessing plant physiologic responses to individual species of root-endogenous fungi; b) ascertaining the biology of individual species, i.e.,  whether isolates are mutualistic, opportunistic, pathogens, or latent saprotrophs; c) fungal species discovery; d) surveying isolates for endohyphal bacteria, i.e., endosymbionts of fungal organisms themselves, which have been implicated in conferring functional traits to host fungi; e) community-level experimentation in mesocosms and1 experimental wetlands to quantify and model the role of below-ground interactions in plant species diversity and persistence in wetland restoration or enhancement (i.e., for cultural use).
4. Paleomycology. A major component of Dr Klymiuk’s doctoral work involved systematic description of saprotrophic, endophytic, and pathogenic fungi associated with permineralized plants of the Eocene (48.7 Ma) Princeton Chert flora. Many of these fossil fungi constitute asexual reproductive and vegetative structures that are frequently attributable to living genera, providing molecular calibration data for extant fungal lineages.  The Princeton Chert investigations constitute some of the most complete descriptions available for any fossil fungi, illustrating spores, mycelia, and developmental sequences, including conidiogenesis (sporulation in asexual growth phases).  These are data that are typically unavailable; fossil records for most non-mycorrizhal fungal lineages consist of isolated spores or hyphal fragments.  Paleomycological investigations were the ‘jumping off point’ of the Klymiuk Lab’s current research program, as it became evident that too little was yet understood of the ecology of contemporary plant-fungal interactions in wetland plants. Many Princeton Chert fungi remain to be discovered and described.