Gabe Runte

I’m a field and lab tech.

I graduated from UC Santa Barbara in the spring of 2018 and shipped off immediately to work with Carla at the Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge on the island of Hawaii. I currently continue work relating to the Hakalau project as well as a number of other projects that I have taken on since returning to California.

My interests primarily lie in understanding the role of mycorrhizae in the restoration of degraded lands, and soil fungal influence on ecosystem functioning as a whole. In Hawaii, we look at ericoid mycorrhizae and shrub regeneration on deforested pasture land, while in Southern California, we are working to investigate how ectomycorrhizal communities influence Pseudotsuga (Douglas fir) recruitment in fire scars.