Understanding Microbial Communities Through Single Cell Behaviours  

Microbial cells do not exist and function in isolation but operate as part of spatially structured communities, where the behaviour of each cell influences the behaviour of other cells in the neighbourhood. The activity of bacterial cells at the microscale influences biogeochemical processes at the global scale ultimately affecting health of plants, humans or animals. Despite these being well-established tenets, we have very few empirical analyses of how individual bacterial behaviours at the microscale influence the activities of neighbours, determine the organisation and assembly of communities, and affect the health or diseased states of their eukaryotic hosts as well as optimal operation of biogeochemical cycles on our planet. My work fills these knowledge gaps and asks

how cellular behaviours at the microscale influence functional as well as ecological and evolutionary dynamics of microbial communities.