Collage working group Plant Microbiosis.

Junior Research Group Plant Microbiosis

Dr Matthew T. Agler
Collage working group Plant Microbiosis.
Image: Arbeitsgruppe Plant Microbiosis
Matthew Agler, Dr
Junior research group leader Plant Microbiosis
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Portrait Dr. Matthew Agler.
Image: Matthew Agler
Hellfeldsches Haus
Neugasse 23
07743 Jena Google Maps site planExternal link

Rhodococcus sp. isolate colonizing vasculature of A. thaliana roots

Image: Matthew Agler

Research

In plants, microorganisms function together with host genetics and the abiotic environment to help regulate processes like plant growth, flowering, stress resistance and the outcomes of disease and herbivory. Therefore, from both a basic research and applied agriculture point of view, it is critical to understand how plant-associated microbial communities form and their implications. Until now, most of our knowledge of plant-microbe interactions comes from molecular and evolutionary studies of binary plant-microbe model systems. At the microscopic level, however, plants are living ecosystems simultaneously colonized by diverse prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Recent research has revealed that besides interacting with the host, plant-associated microbes interact with each other, playing important roles in shaping microbial community structures.

Little is known about what types of microbe-microbe interactions occur in plants and how they affect the structure and functions of plant-associated microbiota. Even less is known about whether these interactions are conserved and have played important roles in the evolution of microorganisms and host plants. This knowledge gap severely limits our understanding of host-associated microbiota in the wild and in agricultural systems. The research group “Plant Microbiosis” studies microbe-microbe interactions to help answer these questions and to bridge the gap between ecological (microbiome diversity) and evolutionary (plant-microbe interactions) understandings of plant-associated microbiota.

Further information may be found on the website of the research group "Plant Microbiosis":

https://sites.google.com/view/microbiosis/External link

CV – Matthew Agler

Zeitraum Station
2017 Group Leader Junior Research Group, Plant Microbiosis, Institute of Microbiology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
2017 Faculty member, Jena School for Microbial Communication
2017 Faculty member, International Leibniz Research School
2012 – 2017 Posdoctoral Researcher, MPI for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany
2012 Ph.D., Cornell University
2006 BS, University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign

 

Microbiology Campus (JSMC/Micro)

Image: Matthew Agler