Altai Krai Center for Forests Preservation unveiled their secrets to ASU students

Biologists are people, whose interests lie in the area of studying the living things. Faculty of Biology students study mushrooms, vascular plants and the relations between these organisms. Specialists, working for Altai Krai Center for Forests Preservation under the supervision of Lyudmila I. Kalchenko, told the students whether there always is a symbiosis between a plant and a mushroom or not and how to identify mushrooms’ pathogenicity.

Lyudmila I. Kalchenko said that their department monitored the condition of forest genetic resources and controlled the turnover of reproductive material of forest plants during the forest regeneration. Moreover, the Department of Forest Genetics conducts development and implementation of DNA-diagnostics techniques into the practice of forest pathology monitoring, determines the intraspecific differentiation of the dominant forest forming species (boundary lines between subspecies, ecotypes, populations within their natural habitat), specifies the geographical origin of reproductive material, conducts the early detection of forest disease centers, designate the degree of damage made to forest plants seedlings by pathogenic microbial flora in forest nurseries. The department employees make genetic certificates for all objects of forest seed production (elite trees and plantations).

In the course of the excursion ASU Faculty of Biology students found out how to extract DNA of a pathogenic mushroom and how the modern science helps to run forestry management.

Altai State University expresses its gratitude to Altai Krai Center for Forests Preservation represented by Lyudmila I. Kalchenko for the enlightening discussion and demonstration of laboratory equipment capabilities.