Tropical-temperate comparison of border effect on mixogastids (2014)
Objetive
This project has been designed to obtain comparable data on the effect of the forest border on myxogastrids communities as a way to continue building a dataset of ecological information for tropical myxomycetes.
Context
During the last decades, a number of ecological studies have been carried out in the Neotropics on the dynamics of myxogastrids in natural ecosystems. Up to this point, even though some progress has been accomplished, there are still a number of interesting questions about the role of this group of microorganisms in the dynamics of ecosystems. As a way to alleviate the disparity of knowledge between temperate and tropical areas, this project has been designed. The idea is to compare pattterns between the two geographical areas.
What have we done thus far?
Our research group has collected for this project a large dataset of ground litter samples from both Costa Rica and the southern United States. We are trying to analyze information in the context of other research projects carried out between the two regions. With the help of Carla Valdés, a grad student from Nuevo León, Mexico, our group was able to visit a number of very interesting areas across Costa Rica. Some of these visits have generated side projects that we are now working on as well.
What kind of results we have up to this point?

The most obvious results we have up to this point is the obvious difference in species richness and diversity between temperate and tropical areas. Even though this pattern has been discussed thoroughly in the literature, it has not been necessarily associated with a particular microhabitat for myxogastrids. In this way, our project has been finding enough information regarding such a pattern for ground litter. 
Besides the information being generated at that level, this project is also finding data on the difference between the upper and the lower layers of ground litter in forests. Differences in ocurrence patterns have been documented during the course of the project and these seem to be associated with structural differences in the leaf litter composition. Differences across forest types for lignicolous myxomycetes have been found as well.
Some products from this project

Rojas C, Valverde R. 2014. Ecological patterns of lignicolous myxomycetes from two different forest types in Costa Rica. Nova Hedwigia (in press). 

Rojas C, Doss RG. 2014. Does habitat loss affect tropical myxomycetes? Mycosphere 5: 688-696.

Rojas C, Calvo E, Doss R, Sommerville S. Forest dynamics and myxomycete assemblages: the case of the forest edge. Presentation offered in the frame of the VIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Micología in Medellín, Colombia. 2014.

This project has been directly supported by Vicerrectoría de Investigación from the  University of Costa Rica.  Due the academic character of the project, some non-scientific results have also been produced.  The two short educational notes shown below are written in Spanish for the local communities.
 
Fungal productivity and canopy structure differences among different forest types in Costa Rica (2014)
Objetive
The main objetive of this project is to characterize changes in the canopy of two forest types in Costa Rica and evaluate those differences in terms of fungal productivity.
Context
There are few studies on the relationship between forest and fungal dynamics in tropical areas. In Costa Rica, most of the fungal studies have been carried out from a taxonomic perspective. However, in order to come up with management ideas toward the conservation of fungal resources, more integrated studies are needed.
What have we done thus far?
We have visited the areas and collected photographic information about the canopies of the forest types under study. During the rainy season fungal assessments were carried out and data analysis was performed. The latter has included information from the last two years as well as microenvironmental data collected during 2014.
What kind of results do we have up to this point?
The two forest types evaluated during this study are very different from a functional perspective. As expected, dry forests showed a higher degree of canopy variablity than premontane moist ones. Interestingly, it seemed that such variability has an effect on fungal productivity in terms of creating a "window" for the fruiting process. Even though 2014 has been an "El Niño" year, we were able to collect important information regarding the dynamics of fungi for the studied areas.
For example, in the premontane areas, fungal productivity increased in the introduced forest patches but remained stable in the native ones in comparison to previous years. This is important to know since little information on fungal ecology integrated with regional phenomena is available still.
Some products from this project

Rojas C, Doss RG. 2014. Carbono, bosques y micorrizas: una “negación de investigación imperativa”. Brenesia 81-82:91-95.

Rojas C, Calvo E, Valverde R, Sommerville S. Macrofungal dynamics in a carbon stock context in two Costa Rican forest types. Presentation offered in the frame of the VIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Micología in Medellín, Colombia. 2014.


This project has been directly supported by Vicerrectoría de Investigación from the  University of Costa Rica.  Due the academic character of the project, some non-scientific results have also been produced.  The two short educational notes shown below are written in Spanish for the local communities.
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Association between tropical inflorescences and myxogastrid assemblages: how much is it telling us about forest degradation processes? (2014)

Objetive
This project  has been designed to study myxogastrids associated with tropical inflorescences as a way to carry  out two different objectives: 1) contribute to the knowledge on the natural history of myxogastrids and 2) evaluate the association between the group and monocot inflorescences in a frame of forest degradation.
Context
Even though myxogastrids on inflorescences have been documented during the last decades in the Neotropics, there is still few available information about the natural history of this association. Given the fact that Costa Rica has the monocots that the group has been documented on and that the last time a project on the topic was carried out was more than 10 years ago, we decided to conduct the present study.
What have we done thus far?
Systematic collections of materials for moist chamber cultures were collected in both the Lankester Botanical Gardens and the Grecia Forest Reserve. This material has been studied in lab conditions and all collected vouchers have been deposited in a proper venue.
What kind of results do we have up to this point?
The first result we have from this project is the confirmation of  the fact that infloresences of monocots represent a true microhabitat for myxomycetes in tropical areas. Event though some work had already been done, our study showed that the incidence of fruiting bodies may be as high as than 75%. In a similar manner, the confirmation of the genus Heliconia as a niche for a particular assemblage of myxomycetes dominated by the genera Physarum and Didymium has also been found during this study.
The comparison of study areas, one managed and one unmanaged has also yielded interesting results. No apparent differences have been recorded for indicators such as species richness and species diversity and a high percentage of the species found in either area are shared among the study sites. In spite of those results, this study represented the first of its kind in Central America.
Some products from this project

This project has been directly supported by Vicerrectoría de Investigación from the  University of Costa Rica.  Due the academic character of the project, some non-scientific results have also been produced.  The two short educational notes shown below are written in Spanish for the local communities.
 

The carbon stock-mycorrhizae relationship in different forest subtypes across two life zones in Costa Rica (2012-2013)

Objective
This is a project designed by Dr. Rojas with the main objetive of studying the basic structural characteristics of forest systems and their relationship with fungal guild dynamics.
Context
The idea is for this project to be part of long-term initiative that will quantify, identify and document the plant-fungus relationship from a functional perspective in different forest types in Costa Rica.
What have we done thus far?
Up to 2013, the team (Erick Calvo, Irene Calderón, Stephanie Somerville, Carlos Rojas) has documented tree biomass and carbon sequestered equivalent units in four plots representing two different forest subtypes in two different ecological situations in Costa Rica.
We have also measured fungal biomass and obtained genus-level biodiversity estimates for the areas in question. Along with this, an estimation of the reproductive capacity of each fruting body in relation with its biomass, called reproductive sucess-ratio, has been estimated for more than three thousand individual fruiting bodies.
What kind of results do we have up to this point?
We have found that even though estimations for carbon sequestration can be very high for certain forest types (e.g. introduced Cypress forests in our case), the complete story in terms of forest valuation is not appropriate if only this parameter is used.
When aspects related with biodiversity and ecosystem services are included in the analysis, other forest types (e.g native oak forests in our case) seem to perform better than previous ones.
In the case of  this investigation, the quantification of fungal productivity and reproductive success has shown a positive correlation with total biomass for the defined study areas. Interestingly, the dry forests evaluated have shown a higher than expected macrofungal productivity and diversity, providing some baseline data for future research on the topic.
Some products from this project

Rojas C, Calvo E. 2014. Forest Biomass, Carbon Stocks, and Macrofungal Dynamics: A Case Study in Costa Rica. International Journal of Forestry Research. DOI 10.1155/2014/607372. 

This project has been directly supported by Vicerrectoría de Investigación from the  University of Costa Rica.  Due the academic character of the project, some non-scientific results have also been produced.  The two short educational notes shown below are written in Spanish for the local communities.

Bottom-up dynamics evaluation using myxogastrids as a way to contribute to ecosystem restoration programs (2012-2013)

Objetive
The main objetive of this initiative is to obtain baseline data about myxomycete ecology in order to understand the role of the group in the dynamics of successional ecological systems
Context
This is a project that continues with a line of research promoted by the scientific community working on the group in the late 90´s. For tropical areas, there is still a lot of know, even though the Neotropics have been especially studied during the last decade. However tropical-temperate comparisons are still largely valid due the scarcity of systematically-collected datasets.
What have we done thus far?
We have collected material in different areas of the world in order to understand if there are patterns of fructification associated with different forest systems and resource quality characteristics of the systems studied.
Most of the information obtained to this point has come from central Europe, eastern North America, southeast Asia and Central America. However plans to expand the collecting areas are in the agenda.
What kind of results do we have up to this point?
Thus far, we have seen the obvious and expected differences in taxonomic assemblages between tropical, subtropical  and temperate areas. However, there are patterns such as resource quality relationships, that seem to be prevalent independently of the area being studied.
As part of this project two layers of leaf litter have been examined independently and results suggest that the upper layer represents a better substrate for fruiting body formation in myxomycetes. At the same time, the analysis in relation with the level of disturbance has shown that intermediate areas seem to be favored by myxomycetes for the formation of reproductive structures.
The latter results are interesting due the fact that they show particular microhabitat associations in a group of microorganisms that can be explained at the macrohabitat level as well. 
Some products from this project

Rojas C, Morales RE, Calderón I, Clerc P. 2013. First records of myxomycetes from El Salvador. Mycosphere 4: 1042–1051.

Rojas C, Doss RG. 2013. Brief research history and status of myxomycete conservation in the Neotropics. Brenesia 79: 37-43.

Rojas C, Calvo E. 2014. Additions to the myxobiota of Central America. Mycosphere 5: 488-495.

This project has been directly supported by Vicerrectoría de Investigación from the  University of Costa Rica.  Due the academic character of the project, some non-scientific results have also been produced.  The two short educational notes shown below are written in Spanish for the local communities.