Nutrition is essential to life - from fundamental cellular processes to the structure of entire ecosystems. For vertebrates, host nutrition is mediated by the gut microbiome - the archaeal, bacterial, fungal and viral communities of the gastrointestinal tract. However, we have a limited understanding of how host-microbe nutritional interactions influence vertebrate ecology and evolution.
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My research seeks to understand how host-microbe nutritional interactions influence wildlife health, ecology, and conservation. Specifically, I use cutting-edge approaches such as wild-derived germ-free animal models, culture-enriched microbiome profiling, and metagenomic techniques to study interactions between animal nutritional ecology, physiology, gut microbiota, and extrinsic environmental factors. ​

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Updates

• ​October 2021. New paper how glucocorticoids affect the  gut microbiome of lizards published in Molecular Ecology.
• August 2021. Presented new research on the potential function of the Blackpoll Warbler gut microbiome at our avian microbiome symposium for the 2021 AOS meeting.
• July 2020. Started Rose Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology!

Featured Publications​

Conservation biology needs a microbial renaissance: a call for the consideration of host-associated microbiota in wildlife management practices.

In ovo microbial communities: a potential mechanism for the initial acquisition of gut microbiota among oviparous birds and lizards

Stream acidification and reduced aquatic prey availability are associated with dietary shifts in an obligate riparian Neotropical migratory songbird

DNA metabarcoding of nestling feces reveals provisioning of aquatic prey and resource partitioning among Neotropical migratory songbirds in a riparian habitat

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