Eco-evolutionary dynamics, experimental biology, bioinformatics, soil microbiology, systems and computational biology, metagenomics, synthetic sourdough starter microbiomes.

Our lab is interested in elucidating the molecular mechanisms that drive eco-evolutionary dynamics in microbial systems and the consequences of these relationships on system-level functions. Fundamental questions we ask include: 1) Can we predict the assembly of microbial communities? 2) How do microbial phylogenetic or functional trajectories shift across environmental gradients? 3) How will microbially-mediated processes change with global change factors? To address these questions, our lab uses an integrative approach combining large scale experiments, synthetic microbial systems, theoretical modeling, and functional ‘omics.

We are primarily focused on two major systems to develop our research program: 1) belowground soil systems - leveraging soil geochemical data along with ‘omics approaches to quantify the functional attributes and ecological strategies soil bacteria and their potential contributions to ecosystem processes 2) synthetic sourdough starters systems – using a lab-based synthetic microbial ‘model’ system that is easily culturable and highly replicable in a lab setting to address fundamental questions in assembly of communities and study eco-evolutionary dynamics.

If you are interested in joining our research team, please email Prof. Oliverio. Our lab is always interested in hearing from prospective graduate students and current undergraduate students who are excited about the research we do!

Landis EA*, Oliverio AM*, McKenney EA, … Wolfe BE (2021) The diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes. eLife, 0, e61644.

* co-first authors

Oliverio AM, Bissett A, McGuire K, Turner BL, Fierer N. (2020) Changes in soil bacterial taxa and their functional attributes across natural gradients in P availability. mBio, 11(5), e01718-20.

Oliverio AM, Geisen S, Delgado-Baquerizo M, Maestre FT, Turner BL, Fierer N. The global-scale distributions and ecological preferences of soil protists (2020) Science Advances, 6(4), eaax8787.

Delgado-Baquerizo M, Oliverio AM, Brewer T, Benavent-Gonzáles A, Eldridge DJ, Bardgett RD, Maestre RT, Singh BK & Fierer N. (2018) A global atlas of the dominant bacteria found in soil. Science, 6373(359) 320-325.

Oliverio AM, Power JF, Washburne A, Cary SC, Stott MB & Fierer N (2018) The ecology and diversity of microbial eukaryotes in geothermal springs. The ISME Journal, 1.

Oliverio AM, Bradford MA, & Fierer N. (2017). Identifying the microbial taxa that consistently respond to soil warming across time and space. Global Change Biology, 23(5), 2117-2129.