My current research aims to understand how AM fungi communities shift in contributions to network structure with changes to plant diversity.
My overall goal is to understand how AM fungi-bacterial interactions can be better implemented to increase plant community diversity for restoration.
Network interactions between soil microbial taxonomic groups
broad research questions include:
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When does plant diversity mirror AM fungal diversity?
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What allows for multiple AM fungal taxa to coexist within a complex bacterial network?
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What are AM fungal functional roles per fungal family?
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How do soil microbial interactions shift with changes to the aboveground community?
hoosein et al. In REVIEW
hoosein et al. In REVIEW
hoosein et al. In REVIEW
Plant-Soil Microbial Feedbacks
via microbe-microbe interactions
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Using plant-soil feedbacks and co-occurrence network analyses, can we determine which microbial interactions support high plant diversity systems?
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And can we recreate these microbial interactions to restore degraded soils?
Created using iGraph: Co-occurrence network with high modularity
broad research questions include:
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How do soil microbial interactions shift with changes to plant diversity?
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Do soil legacies dictate the long-term stability of soil microbial interactions?
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How do AM fungi contribute to network structure?
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What factors determine when the key players in a network shift?
Created using iGraph: Co-occurrence network where node size is indicative of degree centrality to network structure
Created using Cytoscape and Gephi: Co-occurrence network where node size is indicative of degree, pink edges (lines) indicate negative cppcurrence interactions and blue edges (lines) represent coexistence, or positive interactions.
Current and developing research
Interactions in the Rhizosphere Microbiome
broad research questions include:
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Which microorganisms in the rhizosphere are competing for the same plant resources?
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Are certain microbial taxa more dependent on other microbial interactions/functioning?
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How are hubs different from keystone species? And how do we differentiate their network implications from an ecological perspective?
AMF associations in Restoration Ecology
From Hoosein and Robinson 2016
previous research (Hoosein and Robinson 2016):
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How does AMF colonization rate differ in Celastrus orbiculatus degraded and non-degraded ecosystems?
Ongoing questions
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How does land use change influence:
(a) AMF community structure
(b) changes in plant community structure that influence AMF community structure
Applications in Microbial Ecology
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Ecological Restoration
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How can we utilize microbes to help restore degraded ecosystems?
:
Microbial Solutions for Agriculture
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What can we learn about microbial interactions to sustainably increase crop yield and soil health?
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How do regenerative agricultural practices contribute to the plant-soil relationship?
