Microbial Ecology

 Microbial ecologists in the Department of Biology and Wildlife investigate the many roles microbes play in ecosystem, animal, and human health. Our research topics include the biodegradation of environmental contaminants, biogeochemical cycling, plant-microbe interactions, antibiotic resistance, and emerging diseases. We employ tools such as MinION (Nanopore) and Illumina sequencing, stable isotope probing, molecular biology, and traditional microbiology to address a wide range of questions in microbial ecology.

Our group actively fosters education and outreach to K12 students and the public. We help organize collaborations between the environmental sciences, arts, and humanities, produce art-science exhibits and performances for the public, and we conduct collaborative research on the impacts of these activities on audiences, such as “Microbial Worlds: An Arts-humanities-science Collaborative Exhibit”.

UAF microbial ecologists play an active role in the Alaska Branch of the American Society for Microbiology, where students, faculty, and researchers from across the University of Alaska system annually meet together with state and federally employed microbiologists and employees of environmental consulting firms to network and share their research.

Faculty doing research in this area:

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