Evolutionary Ecology of Microbial Environments

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Individual organisms are not merely subject to external forces, they actively construct and modify the shared environment in which they and others live. This is true for us humans; our collective actions transform the world around us. It is just as true for microbes, living in multi-species communities that both change their environment and are changed by that environment. My research seeks to understand how the environments microbes occupy and construct predicts their evolution.

I ask questions such as:

  • How does the genome of a bacteria determine the set of molecules it releases in any given environment?

  • How does the pool of molecules released by different species determine the assembly of a whole community?

  • How does set the metabolites produced by a complex community determine the evolution of species within that community.

  • How can we tune the metabolic environment to control the evolution of microbial community function

“Tout ce qui est vrai pour le Colibacille est vrai pour l’éléphant” [What is true for E.coli is true for the Elephant] -Jacques Monod 1972

“Tout ce qui est vrai pour le Colibacille est vrai pour l’éléphant” [What is true for E.coli is true for the Elephant] -Jacques Monod 1972

I am currently addressing these questions as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Petrov Lab at Stanford. For more info on my current & past work see Research and Publications.