Research summary
Most biodiversity research has focused on plants, vertebrates and arthropods. But given that microbial communities colonize and interact with macro-organisms—such as plants, humans and animals—they also potentially influence their survival and productivity. Microbial ecology is the study of the diversity, distribution and interactions of microorganisms in ecosystems. As Canada Research Chair in Applied Microbial Ecology, Dr. Isabelle Laforest-Lapointe is improving our understanding of microbial ecology and the assembly of microbial communities.
She and her research team are exploring the space-time dynamics of plant-microbe interactions across cities, agricultural fields and forests. They are also manipulating plant-microbe interactions to increase host resilience to stress induced by global change and modelling these interactions by adapting ecological theories. By expanding our understanding of plant-microbe symbioses, their findings will improve bio-control technologies aimed at maintaining ecosystem productivity and resilience.