The Pacheco Lab has an open position to investigate how environmental conditions shape microbial interactions, with a particular focus on plant-associated systems.
In nature, microbes form complex communities whose functions are tightly linked to those of their host ecosystems. While previous work has shown that resource availability strongly influences microbial community composition, we still lack a mechanistic understanding of how environmental conditions – especially those associated with plant hosts – reshape microbial interactions.
A major challenge in microbial ecology is that interactions between microbes are not fixed, but instead depend on environmental context. Plant-associated environments, such as the rhizosphere, are characterized by complex and dynamic resource landscapes shaped by root exudates and spatial structure. These features are expected to fundamentally influence microbial cooperation, competition, and metabolic dependencies, yet the underlying principles governing these effects remain poorly understood.
Through this project, we aim to uncover how environmental context rewires microbial interaction networks through metabolic mechanisms. Using controlled experimental systems that mimic key features of plant-associated environments, the successful candidate will systematically investigate how changes in resource composition, temporal dynamics, and environmental structure influence interactions among bacteria. A central goal of the project is to move beyond pairwise interactions and develop a network-level understanding of how microbial communities respond to environmental complexity.
This work will contribute to a predictive framework linking metabolic traits, environmental conditions, and microbial interaction networks, with long-term applications in the rational design of microbial communities for plant health and environmental sustainability.
