Author: Katy Heath

It’s been a busy summer in the greenhouse this year! Clover and Rhizobium and Methylobacterium and Medicago and Sinorhizobium and soybean and Colletotrichum – oh my!

Heath KD, Batstone RT, CerĂ³n Romero M, McMullen II JG. 2022. MGEs as the MVPs of Partner Quality Variation in Legume-Rhizobium Symbiosis. mBio, online. FIG 1 Levels of horizontal mobility lead to nested interactions among the key players in the symbiosis between leguminous plants, nodulating …

New commentary out in mBio! Read More »

Labake’s poster focuses on the correlations between easily measurable traits like chlorophyll content and nitrogen isotope ratios which more closely reflect biological nitrogen fixation.

New paper accepted tracking the nodule, root, and leaf microbiomes of the symbiosis model Medicago truncatula across three host genotypes grown in native soils! Find it here!

Two things (or more), living together in close association, and making something special happen that is greater than the sum of its parts. What better topic to bring together an interdisciplinary team working on plants, bees, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and …

Symbiosis to reintegrate biology Read More »

Undergraduate researcher Laura Goralka just earned High Distinction in research to put the frosting on her Integrative Biology degree! Laura studied antibiotic resistance variation in natural populations of Rhizobium leguminosarum for her research project. Laura’s next move is graduate school …

Laura Goralka is Highly Distinguished! Read More »

Congrats to James! He will be studying how rhizobia impact plants when they are not in the nodules!

Jennifer Jones, now a postdoc at Michigan State, has two recent papers out from her dissertation on wood composition in the tropics! You can find one on habitat (water/land) differences here and one on the effects of bark on decay …

Jennifer publishes a new paper on wood decomposition! Read More »

Natalie Christian started her lab at the University of Louisville in January! She is missed by all, but luckily we get to keep collaborating on the fungal endophytes (like this one) that infect soybean leaves and how they interact with …

Natalie starts her lab at Louisville! Read More »