Thomas Miller
Rice University, TX·Ecology & Evolution
Most plants and animals carry microbes that live on or inside them, called symbionts. These partners can help their hosts cope with stress, but it is still unclear when they help, when they do not, and what that means for where and how well host species survive.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Plant Science & Agriculture
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
host-microbe symbiosis
fungal endophytes
Epichloë
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2029
What they work on
- Test whether Epichloë fungi are most beneficial to host grasses in stressful years, using 15–20 years of demographic data from a symbiont-removal experiment across seven grass species.
- Build stochastic demographic models, which include random year-to-year variation, to test whether symbionts reduce year-to-year swings in host populations and limit genetic drift, the random loss of genetic diversity.
- Test whether the storage effect, a mechanism by which differing responses to fluctuating conditions let competitors coexist, keeps plants with and without symbionts mixed in the same populations.
- Measure how endophyte fungi change host grass responses to drought and herbivory from range core to range edge, using symbiont-removal plots along the south-central US aridity gradient.
- Reconstruct 100 years of change in endophyte prevalence and fitness effects across nine grass species by extracting and genetically profiling fungi from herbarium seed specimens.
More about the research
This research uses cool-season grasses and the fungi that live inside them, called Epichloë endophytes, as a model system. Two long-term projects ask how these fungi affect host plants as conditions change from year to year and from place to place.
Why it matters
Fungal endophytes live in forage grasses used by ranchers and turf grasses used by landscapers, so knowing when these fungi help their hosts could benefit both groups. Understanding how microbes buffer hosts against harsh years and dry range edges could also improve forecasts of how species ranges will shift under climate change. That includes the ranges of pests and disease vectors.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Rebecca Creamer
New Mexico State University, NM·Plant Science & Agriculture
Survey seed collections, including China's Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, for seed-borne fungal endophytes across flowering plants to map where these symbioses occur.
William Morris
Duke University, NC·Ecology & Evolution
Build and validate a climate- and fire-driven integral projection model for Venus flytraps, using demographic data from near-factorial manipulations of fire frequency, drought, and warming across longleaf pine savannas.
Diane Thomson
Scripps College, CA·Ecology & Evolution
Quantify correlations among weather metrics and test whether they are changing over time, using 17–27-year demographic records of six California Channel Islands plant species and one mainland species.
The school
Rice University: 24 labs on PI Pages, $278M a year on research, 267 research doctorates a year.
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