CSTAF Visiting Assistant Professor Sarah Workman is principal investigator of Mycorrhizal Validation and Characterization for Reforestation Efforts in Western Nicaragua. The three-year project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Scientific Cooperation Research Program. Collaborating scientists from the United States and two regional educational institutions—the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua and the PanAmerican School of Agriculture in Honduras—are involved. They are studying arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi—a form of endomycorrhizal associates that share carbon and mineral nutrition with the host plant—to validate their effectiveness in enhancing tree seedling establishment and production in watershed projects and natural forests. In Nicaragua and other Central American countries, efforts to reforest areas damaged by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 are being enhanced through use of mycorrhizal inoculation.