My primary interest lies in studying the dynamics of microbial communities, particularly the ecology and evolution of these complex systems. To gain a better understanding of microbial communities, I use experimental and theoretical approaches to explore fundamental concepts and mechanisms.
Currently, my research is focused on investigating the dynamics of microbial communities following community coalescence, specifically bacteria and bacteriophages in aquatic systems.
Together with colleagues, I investigated how different ecological processes affect the existence of rare and common species in soil bacterial communities. We analyzed spatiotemporal data and found that homogeneous selection, imposed by constant variables, played a greater role in structuring the rare biosphere, while variable selection, imposed by fluctuating variables, was more influential in governing the common biosphere. By partitioning the different types of rarity, we found that permanently rare taxa, which are constrained by physiological traits and are predominantly influenced by homogeneous selection, and conditionally rare taxa, which can switch between rarity and commonness in response to environmental changes and are mostly influenced by variable selection. Overall, this study provides insights into the dynamics of microbial rare biospheres and offers a framework to better understand and predict their existence across different ecosystems and scales.
Jia et al. ISME Communication, 2022: doi: : https://doi.org/10.1038/s43705-022-00177-6External link
