Department of Biology

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Biology Department Faculty

CURRENT RESEARCH
How do environmental challenges result in the evolution of microbial phenotypic and genetic complexity? In our lab, we use a combination of ecological, evolutionary and genetic approaches to address this question in two study systems with consequences for the evolution of disease organisms.

Working with a collection of close to 1200 Pseudomonas isolates collected from household habitats, we are investigating factors affecting population structure and biogeography of members of three species groups, the P. putida, P. fluorescens, and P. aeruginosa groups.

We also use using experimentally evolved vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) to explore the relationship between environmental variability and the evolution of genetic context dependence. We are interested in knowing how the order, timing and diversity of hosts to which the virus is exposed influences how much the effects of individual loci depend on the environment, the alleles present at other loci in the genome, or both.