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Tammy Tintjer, Ph.D.

Tammy Tintjer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Biology Department

Parente 311

Expertise: ecology, botany, symbiosis

Biography

Tammy Tintjer, Ph.D. received her Bachelor of Science in Biology with a focus in Environmental Science from Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama in 1995. She then received her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a minor in Plant Sciences from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2005. For her graduate research, she studied a plant-fungus symbiosis—a research area that she continues to pursue with student researchers.

After completing graduate school, she accepted a one-year teaching position at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, and then taught for four years at Saint Mary of the Woods College near Terre Haute, Indiana. Dr. Tintjer joined the King’s Biology Department in the Fall of 2010, where she teaches introductory biology lectures and labs to first-year students and other upper-level courses, including Botany.

Most of the research in the Tintjer lab is focused on the symbiosis between grasses and systemic fungal endophytes. This fungus produces secondary metabolites—various types of alkaloids—that can harm grass herbivores and thus help to protect the grass from being eaten. Research students have developed and refined bioassays, including one using brine shrimp to detect the anti-herbivore bioactivity of the fungal endophyte. Other student research is focused on invasive plant species, including knotweed species, focusing on what gives them a competitive advantage over native plants.

Her other interests include keeping a fruit and vegetable garden, adding native plants to the yard to support native insects and birds, and baking sourdough bread.

Education

  • B.S., Biology, Auburn University at Montgomery
  • Ph.D., Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, Indiana University

Publications and Presentations

  • Michaella Moyer and T. Tintjer. 2025. Comparison of isolation techniques for Epichloë endophyte. Poster presented at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, Harrisburg, Pa.
  • Fink, O. and T. Tintjer. 2018. Fungal endophyte effect on Spodoptera frugiperda feeding on Agrostis hyemalis compared with results of the brine shrimp bioassay. Conference presentation at the 10th International Symposium of Fungal Endophytes in Grasses, Salamanca, Spain
  • Fink, O. and T. Tintjer. 2016. Fungal Endophyte Harms Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, larvae feeding on the grass Agrostis hyemalis. Poster presented at the 2016 Meeting of Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Ecological Society of America. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
  • T. Tintjer. 2015. Application of the brine shrimp lethality assay to detect the bioactivity of the endophyte-infected grass (Agrostis hyemalis). Conference presentation at the 9th International Symposium of Fungal Endophytes in Grasses, LaTrobe University, Melbourne, Australia
  • Kolbeck, M. and T. Tintjer. 2015. Use of a brine shrimp (Artemia salina) assay to evaluate endophyte-infected Agrostis hyemalis toxicity. Poster presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pa.
  • Leger, A. and T. Tintjer. 2015. Success Rate and Effects on Growth of Artificial Combinations of Cool Season Grasses and Strains of Fungal Endophytes. Poster presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pa.
  • Hippeli, S. and T. Tintjer. 2014. The Role of the Endophyte Neotyphodium coenophialum in the invasive properties of Festuca arundinacea through Soil Community Feedback. Poster presented at 90th meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pa.
  • Custer, G., T. Tintjer, and J. Belanger. 2014. Assessment of Protection of Host Tissues by Vertically Transmitted Fungal Endophytes. Poster presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pa.
  • Barna, L. and T. Tintjer. 2013. Longitudinal Study of Foraging Preferences of Castor canadensis in a Leatherleaf-Sedge Wetland Habitat. Poster presented at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, University of Pittsburgh-Bradford, Bradford, Pa.
  • Barna, L. and T. Tintjer. 2012. Foraging Preferences of Castor canadensis in a Leatherleaf-sedge Wetland Habitat. Poster presented at the 88th Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, Cedar Crest College. Allentown, Pa.
  • Kolbeck, M. and T. Tintjer. 2016. The use of a brine shrimp assay to detect bioactivity in the endophyte-infected grass, Agrostis hyemalis, Journal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science. 90(1): 13-20
  • Tintjer, T., Leuchtmann, A. and Clay, K. 2008. Variation in horizontal and vertical transmission of the endophyte Epichloë elymi infecting the grass Elymus hystrix. New Phytologist. 179: 236-245.
  • Tintjer, T. and J. A. Rudgers. 2006. Grass herbivore interactions altered by strains of a native endophyte. New Phytologist. 170: 513-521.
  • Clay, K., Reinhart, K., Rudgers, J., Tintjer, T., Koslow, J., and S. L. Flory. 2008. Red queen communities. Pp. 145-178, In Ecology of Infectious Diseases: Interactions between diseases and ecosystems. (V. Eviner, F. Keesing and R. Ostfeld, Eds.). Princeton University Press, Princeton.
  • Flory, S.L., E. Ingram, B. Heidinger, T. Tintjer. 2005. Hands–On in the Non-Laboratory Classroom: Reconstructing Plant Phylogenies Using Morphological Characters. The American Biology Teacher 67(9):542-547.
  • White, J. F. Jr., T. E. Drake (Tintjer) and T. I. Martin. 1996. Endophyte-host associations in grasses: XXIII. A study of two species of Balansia that form stromata on nodes of grasses. Mycologia 88 (1): 89-97.