Life on leaves: modeling the ecology and evolution of plant-microbe interactions

植物-微生物相互作用可能对植物的生态和进化产生重要影响，但由于最近深入研究微生物生物多样性的分子方法的发展，我们对植物-微生物联合模式以及导致这些模式的过程的了解仍处于初级阶段。我的研究计划的长期目标是了解植物-微生物相互作用的生态学和进化-什么微生物生活在树叶上，它们执行什么功能，以及它们对植物宿主的重要性。我的研究计划的短期目标是使用植物叶圈(叶表面的微生物)作为一个模型系统，以了解植物和微生物之间的联系是如何在植物生命树上进化的，识别叶片上微生物群落的来源和控制其多样性的生态过程，并确定不同的微生物群落如何混合在一起，以确定它们的植物宿主的功能。我的实验室将采取多尺度的方法，将广泛的植物相关微生物群落的调查和分析相结合，以了解导致植物及其相关微生物群落相互作用的生态和进化过程，以及现场操纵实验，以了解植物-微生物相互作用的机制及其对植物寄主的重要性。我们将通过使用尖端分子生物学和生物信息学方法直接从树叶中测序微生物DNA来量化微生物多样性。这项研究将极大地扩大我们对植物-微生物相互作用机制的理解，以及它们在广泛的空间和环境梯度上对植物和生态系统功能的重要性。除了测试有关植物-微生物群落的生态学和进化的基本假设外，这项研究计划还将量化与植物相关的微生物群落对植物寄主的重要性，并将允许改进植物微生物组的管理和工程，以改善植物健康和生态系统功能。

Plant-microbe interactions may have important effects on the ecology and evolution of plants, but our understanding of patterns of plant-microbe associations and the processes responsible for these patterns are still in their infancy due to the recent development of molecular methods to study the biodiversity of microbes in-depth. The long-term objective of my research program is to understand the ecology and evolution of plant-microbe interactions - what microbes live on leaves, what functions do they carry out, and what is their importance for their plant hosts. The short-term goal of my research program is to use the plant phyllosphere (microbes on leaf surfaces) as a model system to understand how associations between plants and microbes have evolved across the plant tree of life, to identify the sources of microbial communities on leaves and the ecological processes that govern their diversity, and to determine how different communities of microbes may mix together to determine the function of their plant hosts. My lab will take a multi-scale approach that will combine broad-scale surveys and analyses of plant-associated microbial communities to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes responsible for the interaction of plants and their associated microbial communities, along with manipulative experiments in the field to understand the mechanisms of plant-microbial interactions and their importance for the plant host. We will quantify microbial diversity by sequencing microbial DNA directly from leaves using cutting-edge molecular biology and bioinformatics methods. The proposed research will greatly expand our understanding of the mechanisms of plant-microbe interactions and their importance for plant and ecosystem function along broad spatial and environmental gradients. In addition to testing fundamental hypotheses about the ecology and evolution of plant-microbe associations, this research program will quantify the importance of plant-associated microbial communities for the plant host, and will allow improved management and engineering of the plant microbiome to improve plant health and ecosystem function.