Understanding the rules of coexistence requires looking across different levels of biological organization. My research focuses on the assembly mechanisms of ant communities and how these patterns scale up to influence their associated microbial life.
The core of my current work is the study of complex co-occurrence networks. I combine data from ant community composition with microbial profiling to explore how host-level interactions (like competition or thermal filtering) dictate the structure of the microbiome. By analyzing these nested networks, I can decipher if the microbiome assembly is a direct reflection of the host’s environment or a result of complex biotic filters within the ant community.
The goal is to move beyond simple species lists and build a multi-level framework that predicts how global change—from urbanization to climate shifts—affects the stability of both macro and micro-ecological networks.