The microbial species we can observe in our guts, on a piece of fermented food, or in a sample of thawing permafrost depend upon the order and timing that different species happened to arrive in that community, a phenomenon known as priority effects. This project will address fundamental questions about why microbial community composition and function often depend on who gets there first. Why do these priority effects happen? When are they important? What do they do to community function? And can we predict and anticipate them? DNA sequencing and high-throughput phenotyping of microbial communities will be used with ecological theory and probabilistic modeling to deliver insights into the mechanisms behind microbial community assembly under priority effects. Results will pave the way for subsequent work to bottom-up engineer microbial ecosystems for specific applications ranging from treating human disease to ecosystem restoration.

2023

2027