News and Musings

We wrapped up 2018 with the exciting announcement that our project was among those chosen for the new NSF Rules of Life program. Elijah Mehlferber, Jessica Metcalf, Steve Lindow and I will be testing whether and how knowledge of microbiome-mediated protection from one disease system can be used to generate predictions about protective microbial consortia in … Continue reading Papers, grants, and new postdoc arriving

We are welcoming Reena Debray, our newest graduate student, to the lab! Reena's time in the lab is off to a great start as she seeks to quantify the impact of phages on plant resistance to pathogens. Stay tuned for some great science. I am also happy to share two new papers from the lab: … Continue reading New papers and arrivals

Congratulations to graduate student Norma Morella, who received the College of Natural Resources M.J. Vlamis Award for high level of academic distinction! It's no surprise given the great new results she has published: (1) Morella, N. M., Gomez, A. L., Wang, G., Leung, M. S., & Koskella, B. (2018). The impact of bacteriophages on phyllosphere bacterial abundance and composition. Molecular … Continue reading More papers, awards, and grants

It's been a busy year so far! Among the recent exciting news: (1) Fourth year graduate student Norma Morella, AmGen summer scholar Annika Gomez (now heading to MIT for her NSF-funded Phd), undergraduate researchers Grant Wang, Michelle Leung, and I have just published a paper in Molecular Ecology showing the impact that a naturally occurring … Continue reading Papers and awards

(1) The microbiome beyond the horizon of ecological and evolutionary theory published in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Britt's coauthors, Jess Metcalf from Princeton and Lindsay Hall from the Quadrum Institute set out to ask where current evolutionary and ecological theory might fall short when being applied to microbiome research. It was a very challenging and fun piece to write! (found … Continue reading A few new papers from the lab

Britt is one of three recipients of the American Society for Microbiology's Young Investigator Award, which "Recognizes and rewards early career scientists for research excellence and potential in microbiology and infectious disease." She will be accepting the award, and giving a research seminar, at ASM Microbe in Atlanta this coming Summer. https://www.asm.org/index.php/asm-news/item/6810-announcing-the-2018-asm-award-winners

Summary: Host susceptibility to pathogens can be shaped by genetic, ecological, and evolutionary factors. The ability to predict the spread of disease therefore requires an integrated understanding of these factors, including effects of pests on pathogen growth and competition between pathogens and commensal microbiota for host resources. We examined interactions between the leaf-mining moth Cameraria … Continue reading Now out in the New Phytologist: exploring the relationship between tree health and the bark microbiome

Summary: Drivers of bacterial community assemblages associated with plants are diverse and include biotic factors, such as competitors and host traits, and abiotic factors, including environmental conditions and dispersal mechanisms. We examine the roles of spatial distribution and host size, as an approximation for age, in shaping the microbiome associated with Quercus robur woody tissue using … Continue reading New paper by Sean Meaden in Environmental Microbiology Reports examining the microbiota of English Oak in Wytham Woods

I have decided to get this section of my lab page going again after a very busy year of moving my lab to UC Berkeley and becoming a parent. As a first pass, I've decided to collapse my tree diseases tab and Blog tab into one. So here are two old posts that need a … Continue reading Tree diseases (old posts)

Cathy's first year in the lab is off to a great start, with plants in the greenhouse ready for her first multigenerational  bacteria - phage selection experiment. The funding from her GRFP will be used to take her research out into the field. Watch this space, and well done Cathy!