The Role of the Microbiome in Eco-Evolutionary Interactions

Prof. Ellen Decaestecker’s research group, the MicrobiomeEcoEvo group hosted at the KU Leuven Interdisciplinary Research Facility Life Sciences, investigates host-microbiome interactions in different model systems ranging from invertebrates (water fleas, freshwater snails and spider mites) up to (marine) mammals and primates (lemurs and humans). Within the One Health framework of the role of environmental change in disease emergence and control, we study host-microbiome interactions to gain insight into the processes that control the dynamics of these interactions. Via a combination of in situ field surveys and in vivo experiments using germ-free host organisms and microbiome transplants and via next generation sequencing (metabarcoding and metagenomics), we investigate the effect of anthropogenic induced environmental disturbance on the community composition and functionality of the microbiomes. We study whether adapted microbiomes can modify host phenotypes that affect ecosystem level processes resulting in microbiome mediated hierarchical eco-evolutionary dynamics.