Project 2

Interdomain Interactions and Interaction Mechanisms

The unifying theme of Project 2 is understanding the consequences and mechanisms of interactions among highly divergent organisms. These interactions can range from symbiotic to parasitic and predatory and have wide-ranging consequences for the functioning of microbiomes and global biogeochemical cycles.

Our shared focus is on interactions between animal and plant hosts with symbionts or parasites, including understanding the broad consequences of these interactions within the microbiomes they are associated with. This focus creates numerous intellectual and methodological synergies and we will create a closely knit network among the groups involved within this project.

We will investigate the symbiosis between fungi and plant roots, which is key for nutrient acquisition by plants but has rarely been studied by taking the full complexity of the soil and root microbiome, including all bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and viruses, into account. We will unravel how giant viruses and RNA viruses interact with protozoa by using a combination of environmental observations and laboratory experiments. And, we will explore microbiome dynamics during different types of inflammatory responses, triggered by bacterial, viral, and helminth infections.