Research Projects
Identifying Keystone Microbes in Natural Ecosystems
We investigate what characteristics of early microbial colonizers influence the soil microbiome’s community structure during early community succession in the native Florida Rosemary Scrub. I combine landscape-scale microbiome data, network analysis, culturing, field experiments, and microbiome sequencing to identify ‘central’ (highly-connected), ‘intermediate’ (moderately-connected) and ‘peripheral’ (weakly/un-connected) microbes and then experimentally test their effects on soil microbial community assembly during early succession in nature.
Investigating Plant-Microbe Interactions to Mitigate Pathogen Stress
I am conducting a factorial experiment manipulating a plant pathogen and multiple microbial mutualists across 6 genotypes of the model legume Medicago truncatula and measuring consequences for plant performance, genome-wide expression, and microbial abundances. This work will provide the first experimental test of how multiple mutualists interact with plant genotype to impact plant phenotypic responses to pathogens and will provide novel insight into the molecular underpinnings of how multiple mutualistic interactions modulate plant responses to pathogens.
Assessing Impact of Domestication on Microbiome Functionality and Stability
We combine molecular genetics and ecological interaction networks to examine how domestication impacts microbiome assembly and the compositional, functional, and structural properties of the rhizosphere using domesticated and wild citrus lineages. This work will also connect plant impact on microbiome recruitment to the underlying governing genes to support future genome-led breeding efforts to reduce the susceptibility of plants to global change factors.