The PhyloEcology Lab at the BRC photo competition 2022! Isidora Silva-Valderrama won the People’s Choice Award for her photo “Life Carries on Even When the Changes are Great”. She described the photo as follows:
“Grapevine Trunk diseases have devastating effects around the globe, and there is no known cure for infected plants. Some of the most destructive pathogens are members of a single fungal family, Botryosphaeriaceae. Can we predict the severity of the infections caused by these pathogens? Can we prevent the next fungal epidemic? Last summer, we inoculated hundreds of grapevine canes with different Botryosphaeriaceae species and quantified their virulence. However, even infected plants grew and produced buds and flowers. Plants teach us resilience, and that life carries on even when the changes are great.”

You can see the photo at the BRC photo Competition website here