College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Entomology

Q: Can you give an overview of your research?  

A: My overall research encompasses the community ecology of insect-microbe interactions in several contexts,including insects as feed and food systems in Africa, disease ecology and decomposition ecology. Research in my lab seeks to answer fundamental questions of how microbes affect, and are affected by, insects. We then look for ways that our fundamental data can be applied in other contexts to improve the human condition. 

Q: Can you tell us about your journey into community ecology? What drew you to studying insect-microbe interactions and their role in ecological systems?  

A: I started off with the goal of going to med school.  That changed with two undergraduate classes with field labs, where we spent time outside exploring and understanding the natural world.  Those classes inspired me to seek graduate study in aquatic ecology; and this led to focusing on an aquatic insect in Hawaii. I then joined Dr. Rich Merritt’s lab at MSU as a postdoc, with a new focus on how aquatic insects respond to road salt impacts, but also a project on the ecology of Buruli ulcer disease, which was hypothesized to have an aquatic insect vector.  However, Rich Merritt also did forensic entomology casework and research which intrigued me and I became more involved with forensic entomology, and this led to new interest in carrion ecology and how it impacts ecosystems and humans, including the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) that consumes organic matter including carrion.  This has now moved into how to use BSF to recycle organic matter (mostly vegetation) to produce feed for aquaculture and livestock. 

Q: What is the Human Microbiome Project and how has it influenced your research?   

A: The human microbiome project is an effort to understand how the human microbiome varies across humans around the world.  The advances in sequencing technology that has made that effort possible inspired me to learn how to use that same technology to explore how microbial communities from the environment may also influence and interact with insects; and then using that understanding for applications important to humanity. Basically, the technology has allowed scientists to study microbes without culturing them, which before the advanced sequencing, only represented about 1% of the total estimated microbial diversity.  So, it has opened up enormous areas of inquiry in many systems, including my lab. 

Q: One of your lab’s focuses is understanding how microbial communities influence insect fitness. Have there been any surprising or particularly impactful findings in this area so far?  

A: We are still working on some of those questions, but we have found that microbes affect the overall body size of blow flies, and that microbes likely affect how necrophagous insects colonize resources. New research suggests that a bacteria may be a new symbiont for an invasive terrestrial insects that is decimating hemlock forests in the US, and if so, it has functional importance to the insect’s fitness; and this could potentially be targeted for managing the species. 

Q: Can you share an example of how your findings have been or could be applied in a practical context?  

A: We have been involved with understanding the postmortem human microbiome; or how changes in the human microbiome after death can be used to estimated the time since death and in some cases the manner or cause of death. Additional studies underway will provide information on how soil bacterial communities may be able to determine if a body has been translocated during a crime; or more positively, how they soil bacteria affect the health of children.  In collaborative research with faculty in Charles Steward Mott Department of Public Health we are helping characterize soils from playgrounds to be evaluated with children health outcomes.  Lastly, some of our work in sequencing has been part of a team that won the XPRIZE Rainforest competition, which was an international effort to develop new technologies and approaches for surveying the biodiversity of rainforest ecosystems.   

Q: Your research explores the interactions between insects and microbial communities across various ecosystems. How does this work have an impact on global ecological and environmental challenges?  

A: One major project in the lab is to understand the ecological controls of an environmental pathogen, how these controls shift with ecosystem disturbances, to affect pathogen transmission to humans and human Buruli ulcer disease outbreaks.  The other area is working with African collaborators in Uganda to bring Insects as Feed (BSF) to communities throughout Africa.  The research in the lab on insect-microbe interactions will help us determine how (and why) certain local sources of organic matter affect the production of BSF in each country’s environmental conditions.  Bacteria in the organic matter (much like that with carrion) changes as it decomposes and the BSF larvae feed on those microbes.  Better understanding those insect-microbe interactions may help improve BSF production for local and regional economic systems in Africa. 

Q: How does your research adapt to different global contexts? Have you observed any significant regional variations in your findings or approach?  

A: I try to learn from all of my projects and consider how they can be used to improve similar research in developing areas of the world, primarily in Africa, but I have keen interest in Asia and Central and South America as well.  Often time we scientists live in our research silos - I try to break out of mine to see if and how my research successes can be incorporated into scientific and cultural capacity building in low income countries. By studying BSF in Africa or Buruli ulcer in Africa or South America, I take advances from research in the USA to move high impact studies to those areas in great need. 

Q: What role do you think international collaborations and partnerships play in advancing research in community ecology and insect science?  

A: International collaborations and partnerships are fundamental to any success in advancing research that matters to areas of the world that have been historically left out of the recognition and success.  Strong, equal and trusted partnerships between collaborators in different nations is the key to some of the world’s most pressing problems, where not one discipline or set of researchers will find answers.  Incorporating internationally diverse perspectives, experiences and expertise is going to be necessary for a sustainable world, one that incorporates the community ecology of insects and their interactions with the enormous global microbial diversity.