Genetics and Physiology of Fungi

I’m interested in all aspects of symbiotic relationships among microbiota and insects. My research scope is focused particularly on symbioses between bark beetles and fungi. I’m interested in coevolutionary history of insect partner and its fungal community, its echoes in population genetic structure of symbiotic associates and ecology of microbial communities. To study these questions I’m using cultivation techniques as well as range of high-througput sequencing techniques capable to recover more conclusively diversity of microbial symbionts converging frequently in their morphology due to restrictive conditions in given niche impeding their identification. To draw any ecologically relevant conclusions about our subjects from huge amount of data provided by high-throughput sequencing technologies and extensive sampling schemes my interests cover also advanced statistical calculations. I’m avid phylogeneticist and I’m involved in several fungal phylogenetics studies. My research projects also include studying population genetics and phylogeography of genus Geosmithia, fungus closely associated with bark beetles with a range of ecological functions which is in focus of our lab for more than decade.