Experimental Metagenomics: Nectar Microbes as a Model System

Preference to graduate students and post-docs; open to upper-level undergraduates with instructor consent. Emphasis on developing a practical understanding of how to conduct metagenomic research by combining cutting-edge molecular sequencing with experimental ecological approaches. Focuses on the community ecology of the bacterial and yeast species that colonize floral nectar via pollinators and the implications for plant-pollinator interactions within an agriculturally relevant framework. Ecological, evolutionary, and phylogenetic principles and microbiological and molecular techniques that will be taught are broadly applicable in many biological fields, including the medical ecology of hte human microbiome. Inquiry-based with individual student-led projects.