Alliances
Mosses do not live alone. They grow in close contact with bacteria, fungi, cyanobacteria, and other microorganisms that may influence how they survive, reproduce, and shape ecosystems.
In this world, we study the microbial communities associated with mosses, especially in dryland soils and biological soil crusts. These partnerships may affect nutrient cycling, stress tolerance, soil stability, plant health, and ecosystem function. For mosses without roots, microbial interactions may be especially important because much of their biology happens at the surface: where water, air, soil, and microbes meet.
Some of our questions include:
- Which microbes live with mosses across environments?
- How do moss microbiomes change with drought, hydration, season, and habitat?
- Do microbial communities help mosses tolerate stress?
- How do moss–microbe partnerships shape dryland soil crusts?
- What molecular and genomic tools can reveal about these interactions?
This world brings together microbial ecology, symbiosis, genomics, bioinformatics, and ecosystem biology.
Papers in this research area:
(2024).
Reproduction and population dynamics in autonomous gametophytes.
International Journal of Plant Sciences.