Our lab's focus is on the evolutionary ecology of interactions between microbes and hosts. We are interested in how both beneficial and harmful microbes establish and maintain relationships with their hosts. Such associations are shaped by ecological limitations on host range, evolutionary trade-offs for both hosts and microbes, and host immunology. We combine genomics, phylogenetics and experimental approaches to study these forces in diverse insect-microbe systems.

The lab is headed by Dr. Nicole Gerardo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Emory University. Nicole is interested in how hosts adapt to defend against pathogens and how pathogens then adapt to overcome these host defenses. Similarly, she is interested in how mutualistic microbes play a role in defending their hosts against pathogens, and how hosts establish associations with beneficial microbes while protecting themselves from pathogenic microbes. To address these topics, she has utilized the versatility of insect–microbe systems in which both the host insects and their associated microbes can be maintained in the laboratory.

See the lab (external link to IO9, a science website)