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Julian Marshall has experienced a side to campus that often escapes notice: the unseen threads of fungi lacing through the soil, a chorus of returning warblers, the industry of ants in redistributing the seeds of native wildflowers.

The Nature Preserve lies at the hub of so much of his ���ϲ����� experience, starting with his initial visit during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. After having his first-ever COVID test in Lot ZZ, he and his parents took a stroll through the Nature Preserve, amid the green summer trees and wetland paths.

Along with his acceptance letter came an invitation to join the First-year Research Immersion (FRI) program, he recounted. The New York City native joined the biogeochemistry stream with Research Associate Professor Jonathan Schmitkons.

“I thought it was really cool that there would be such a direct pathway into research and that really attracted me,” he said. “It gave me a lot of good experience working with teams and motivated me to join other labs.”

Marshall originally intended to major in chemistry but found himself interested in research connected with the environment and chose biology during his sophomore year. His winding forest path also took him to Associate Professor Kirsten Prior’s lab, examining the role that ants in the Nature Preserve play in the germination and fitness of understory forest plants, the focus for his honors thesis.

“Ants and plants in all eastern North American deciduous forests are part of a mutualism called ‘myrmecochory,’” Marshall explained. “The ants take seeds from the plants, bring the seeds back to the nest and chew off an appendage of the seed that the plant makes specifically for the ant. Then, they either leave the seed in the nest or take it outside into a refuse pile.”

About 30 to 40 percent of forest understory plants are myrmecochores, including wildflowers such as trillium, Dutchman’s breeches, bloodroot and hepatica, Marshall said. Both plants and insects benefit from the arrangement: the ants receive a food source, while the plants have their seeds dispersed more widely through the forest.

Marshall, however, was curious whether this mutualism also benefited seed germination and plant biomass. He began a project at the end of his sophomore year involving wild ginger plants, which are myrmecochores.

The plants do seem to have a higher germination rate after being handled by ants, he said; he’s extracting DNA from soils in the Nature Preserve to study the fungal and bacterial life for more insights as to why. Marshall received both a Summer Scholars Fellowship and an undergraduate research award for this research. He also won an external fellowship from the Mycological Society of America.

Separately, Marshall pursued research with lecturer Christopher Smyth, a mycologist, who was analyzing how fungal communities associated with saltmarsh cordgrass might change over a salinity gradient in Virginia’s Chincoteague Bay. Marshall is working to sequence more than 200 fungal isolates and has received grant funding from Harpur Edge to support that work.

Both Smyth and Prior have proven to be influential mentors, helping the future biologist figure out his research and career possibilities, Marshall said.

The fact that Marshall is working on a research project in mycology at the same time as his honors thesis is impressive, Smyth said.

“Just one of these projects is an immense undertaking for an undergraduate student, and he is successfully juggling both along with other, typical college obligations,” he said.

“Julian’s passion and abilities to document biodiversity and to perform research to understand the intricate and complex interactions in nature are exceptional,” Prior said. “Julian is a talented biologist and ecologist with a bright future in applying his knowledge and skills to advance understanding of natural systems and in public engagement to teach others about the importance of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems.”

Making connections

The Nature Preserve isn’t just a source of research data for Marshall. As president of Binghamton’s chapter of the Audubon Society and a co-organizer of EcoBlitz, he also found a web of social connections threaded through the natural world.

Because of the pandemic, Marshall didn’t have much of a social life and spent the last two years of high school doing distance learning, he explained. When he arrived at college, his mom advised him to branch out by joining clubs.

He decided on the Audubon Society, since he was already familiar with the organization.

“This club has been a core part of my college existence,” said Marshall, who has headed the group for the past two years. “I’ve made friends, and I’m just so happy to be sharing this passion that I found through the club. I’m really looking forward to watching the club grow after I graduate.”

The club is, of course, centered on bird-walks and birdwatching, which Marshall finds both educational and relaxing. In addition to learning a lot about our feathered friends, club members have also hung bird feeders, helped the Nature Preserve manage invasive species, participated in cleanup days through the Broome County Parks Department and planted trees. A better environment is also better for birds, Marshall pointed out.

After graduation, he plans to take a break from academia and land a seasonal job, hopefully in the desert. His plan is inspired by author Edward Abbey and a trip he made to the southwest some years back. After that, he’ll present his honors thesis work at the Mycological Society of America’s conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

“My big hope is that I can work on biological soil crust systems, which are incredibly interesting, diverse mutualisms of soil microbes,” he explained. “They’re a keystone part of desert ecology.”

Whichever path he takes, he finds that it bends toward the trees he knows so well.

After working at an Illinois arboretum over the summer, he’ll never forget the feeling he had when he returned to campus — and, of course, the Nature Preserve.

“It just felt comforting. It’s a familiar place that I know better than most places I’ve been,” he reflected. “It just kind of felt like I was hugged by the woods.”