Researcher biography
Project title:
The impact of resource fluctuations on coexistence and cross-feeding in a gut microbial community
Project description:
Understanding how environmental fluctuations shape species coexistence is a central challenge in ecology. Most studies focus on temporal variability in competitive interactions, often overlooking cooperation and the combined influence of temporal and spatial variation. The Drosophila melanogaster gut microbiome provides a tractable system with fluctuating resources and spatial heterogeneity. My research investigates how resource fluctuations affect microbial dynamics by integrating experiments examining competition and cross-feeding. Resource competition models will be extended to include metabolic trade-offs and pathway switching, while a gradostat framework will explore how spatiotemporal heterogeneity influences community assembly and coexistence.