Plant economic trade-offs

Trade-offs are a central theme involved in the maintenance of species diversity. In plants, species can choose to invest in ‘fast’ strategies, living quickly and producing many offspring, or ‘slow’ strategies, investing in few but long lived individuals. A trait emerging as an essential metric in plant economic trade-offs is the ability for plants to associate with microbial symbionts, often using them to offset trade-off costs. Seed-associated microbes are thought to influence host phenotypic variation (e.g. disease resistance, stress tolerance, growth promotion) and thus the outcome of well-known trade-offs in seed investment. In my dissertation I am investigating how seed microbiomes interact with these trade-offs and how they may offset or be constrained by various plant economic strategies. 

Microbial transmission

Plant-associated microbes have a variety of transmission mechanisms to successfully spread to and establish on plant tissue. One interesting type of transmission includes the transmission of microbes from maternal tissue to their offspring, called vertical transmission. For my dissertation I'm investigating how microbes are transmitted from maternal tissue to seeds, and are ultimately transferred to the next generation. This is important as these vertically transmitted microbes are the first to interact with a germinating seed, creating cascading effects on early plant health and microbiome development. 

Plant-microbe interactions

Plants can control the composition of their microbial communities through physical structures, physiological responses, and regulation of their immune system. In my dissertation we investigate how the maternal microbiome can induce transgenerational effects, changes in the next generation, by priming offspring to have over-activated immune systems via DNA methylation. In turn, this can affect the fitness of offspring by not only inducing greater immune regulation but also by shaping how assembly of the early microbiome during seedling development and establishment 

Society & outreach

Besides the communities of microbes we find on every living surface on earth, we as humans are part of our own communities. When I first began my journey as a researcher I was fascinated by its potential to better human life. But I've come to realize that meaningful research is one that connects us back to the communities we were raised in. Science inherently mediates our cultural experience through 'knowledge-making'. In various projects, I try to make my research more meaningful by asking questions on how microbial interactions are  realized in a societal context and interacting with groups in these communities. During my Ph.D. this has been through workshops, mentoring, and through a seed library initiative that aims at increasing food sovereignty in various Bay Area communities.