Research

I conduct basic and applied research on beneficial plant-bacteria associations of agricultural importance, especially those involving the nitrogen-fixing bacterium, Rhizobium. A main focus has been on elucidating the events leading to successful infection of clover roots by the Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. trifolii microsymbiont, and the subsequent development of nitrogen-fixing root nodules. We also investigate a newly described natural association between Rhizobium and cereals (e.g., rice and wheat), and are exploring ways to increase cereal production under real-world agronomic conditions by exploiting the benefits of this plant-microbe association. A second research focus is the development of CMEIAS, a new generation of interactive computer software that combines the resolving power of microscopy with digital image analysis to strengthen microscopy-based approaches for understanding microbial ecology in situ at single cell resolution. Various natural and managed communities and a wide range of digital microscopies are being used for that work.

Publications

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