[Seminar] Asa Conover "Leveraging microbial interactions to shape microbiome composition and function"

Abstract

Deciphering the rules by which interactions govern microbiome composition will help build a roadmap to engineering microbiome function. Using the digestive microbiome of the California pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica) as a model of microbiome assembly, I examine interactions between individual microbial isolates, broad taxonomic groups, and whole communities. Here, I will discuss how bacterial interaction networks change across microbiome succession based on data from pairwise co-culturing; unravel the interplay between bacteria and fungi in digestive processes using fluorescent enzymatic assays; and explore the ability of microbiome transplants to reshape community composition and function. Collectively, my results underscore the importance of interactions in determining microbial composition, and point to possible ways we may leverage interactions to modify a microbiome.

Bio:

Asa is a PhD student at UC Berkeley and a JSPS fellow visiting the Integrative Community Ecology Unit at OIST. His research focuses on microbial interactions and microbiome function, with an emphasis on the role of fungi. He aims to leverage knowledge of natural history to identify understudied organisms that open doors for important questions. Asa’s research utilizes the carnivorous California pitcher plant to test strategies of manipulating microbiomes for organismal health.