@lizkoziol
🦠 Mycorrhizal ecologist @ University of Kansas 🍄 Curator @invam.bsky.social 🌎 @mycobloom.bsky.social https://elizabethkoziol.wixsite.com/lizkoziol Prairies, AMF, microbial inoculants, restoration, conservation, sustainable ag, metabolites, NbS
a box of little brown balls of clay and dirt and seeds in a philly pretzel factory box
Ready to supply ~100 cyclists w/seed bombs for our city's abandoned lots at tonight's @wednightrides.org!
They contain 6-7 species of native plant seeds to juice up the biodiversity of our city, incl.
Ironweed
Echinacea
Partidge Pea
Bee Balm
Blue Vervain
Blackeyed Susan
Swamp Milkweed (sometimes)
Fantastic 🤩
Congrats Toby!
We need help keeping the world’s largest living library of mycorrhizal fungi alive. The INVAM mycorrhizal culture collection is at risk due to federal funding cuts. Its loss would be catastrophic.
Link to donate:
🔗 invam.ku.edu/donate
Read @theguardian.com article:
🔗 buff.ly/hkEGXgu
@mycobloom.bsky.social also got a shout out!
@invam.bsky.social collection, prairies, and AMF all featured in the awesome article
Defunding fungi: US’s living library of ‘vital ecosystem engineers’ is in danger of closing www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Kansas ranchers, landowners, and others with an active working knowledge of grasslands, the Kansas Department of Ag wants your input on the importance of the Kansas grasslands.
I hope my biodiversity and restoration folks chime in!
Find the link here:
www.agriculture.ks.gov/about-us/kan...
Picture of a grassland fire with a very steamy smoke cloud
Our controlled burn last week had lots of green in the understory, which made for a super steamy smoke cloud.
Such a big undertaking! Very neat.
A flyer announcing the date and time of the talks
A fun set of talks this Sunday at the Baker Wetlands Discovery Center (Lawrence, Kansas)! 🍄🧪🔬🦠🌿
Join us at 1:30 PM for prairie restoration & ecology talks.
Helen Alexander will talk about tallgrass prairies, and I’ll share about restoring mycorrhizal fungi—with microscopes & live fungi to explore!
New study from @mvanderheijden.bsky.social lab, showing that many commercial mycorrhizal inoculants are snake oil. So important for this data to be published!
Between this, @lizkoziol.bsky.social and Matt Salomon’s work… well I think we make a strong point.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Two cats creeping up on a pumpkin
Cat 1 punching pumpkin
Cat 2 punching pumpkin
The cats approach the jack-o'-lanterns with caution. Step one: administer several investigative smacks.
Black eyed Susan flowering and with a pollinator visitor October 22.
Such a long, warm fall we have been having, a Rudbeckia hirta starting to flower at the end of October. Crazy
New paper on AM fungi in a prairie restoration experiment planted with community members back in 2021! Beyond the cool results we found, this was such a fun day where so many of my labmates and volunteers supported my first field experiment as a grad student. Feeling so grateful! ☺️
Saw this little cutie on my way into the Kansas Biological Survey this morning.
iNat suggests it's Basiothia medea, the small verdant hawk moth caterpillar.
Monarch caterpillars feed on milkweeds and Colias on legumes like Chamaecrista and Senna in the summer. Late-flowering forbs help support their migrations as butterflies. Feeling so inspired by how AMF inoculation boosts forb and insect diversity in these plots across the season.
Monarch butterfly and a bumblebee on New England aster plant
Two bee species gathering flower on an aster stalk
Orange Sulphur and bee on New England aster. Colias species are dependent on legumes as catapillers, and we have a ton of senna in these plots.
I love visiting my AMF inoculation experiments across every season. AMF diversity supports forbs, and floral diversity across seasons keeps wildlife thriving year-round. These New England asters still blooming in October host orange sulphurs, monarch butterflies, and some busy bees!
New paper!
I am excited about it, since it has some very cool contributions on:
-Status of Invasive ectomycorrhizal fungi
-Definition of what is a invasive mycorhizal 🍄
-Cool picture of trees being brought from Europe in 1920!
Lead by @nahpo.bsky.social! nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Excited to share our paper on grassland establishment 7 yrs after native #AMF inoculation—showing AMF result in higher diversity + prairie spread into old fields—was selected Editor’s Choice by @femsjournals.bsky.social.🦠🌎
I’ll discuss next week at #SER2025 Denver ! academic.oup.com/femsle/artic...
Almost all of our trials are started at restoration initiation. There was one trial where native plants were overseeded into brome monoculture w/o removal. We applied native AMF to native seedling roots — those seedlings established better and showed measurable seed-establishment effects nearby.
Yes, it's moved from theory to practice. We take a few tablespoons of remnant soil, grow the AM fungi and other key microbes like Rhizobia in the lab, and have applied them in ~50 restoration experiments across the prairie range...with success. Now we’re figuring out how to make this work at scale.
Exactly. Forestry has been using mycorrhizal inoculants as standard practice for decades. Time for managed grasslands to catch up.
And the lesson already learned from forestry? Native is key—non-native inoculants can wreck ecosystems.
We pull AM fungi from nearby remnants sites, so they’re local/native.
As for convincing—the data speak: inoculated sites see better late successional seed recruitment and fewer weeds. We’ve shown this in field trials across the tallgrass range—IN to KS, TX to Canada.
Fields tours of restoration projects at Shawnee mission Park
Plant geeks dorking out over a rare Eryngium native plant
The group saw lots of legumes during plot tours of this prairie remnant in NE Kansas
I was honored to be an invited speaker at this year’s Grassland Restoration Network meeting! 🌾 I shared our work on using native inoculants to boost diversity in seed-based restorations—and learned so much from the community of practitioners & researchers. #RestorationEcology #Grasslands
Thrilled to see the INVAM fungal collection—and our dedicated curators—featured in the Fall issue of @sierramagazine.bsky.social Preserving the world’s largest library of mycorrhizal fungi to power ecosystem restoration, science, and sustainable ag. 🦠🌱🌍
🔗 digital.sierramagazine.org/publication/...
Call for symposia at @ICOM2026 is open until 15 October.
The 13 conference of @mycorrhiza_ims #Mycorrhiza will take place in Cairns, Australia, 12-17 July 2026!
@southmycorrhiza @karst_justine @fmartin1954 @1pantunes #soil #fungi
icom2026.org/symposia/
We're seeking a new Senior Editor! ⏰
Are you...
👉intrigued by the interface between ecology & biological resource management?
👉a clear communicator who enjoys working as part of a team?
👉committed to maintaining high editorial standards?
More info 👇
bit.ly/4lPzaIx
This rare long-term evidence that restoring remnant belowground biodiversity can restore aboveground biodiversity. Moreover, fewer non-native plants means less management. 🌏
We added NATIVE arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to a grassland restoration and tracked outcomes. Seven years later we asked: do the benefits still last"?
We found AMF additions resulted in:
🌻Higher floristic quality
🌿Sustained plant diversity
🌾Strong weed suppression
Restorations can struggle long-term: weeds persist, grasses can dominate, and native diversity can stall or fade. Many native grassland species are highly dependent on soil microbes. Yet, soil microbes are rarely considered in large-scale restoration projects.
