My research interests are in microbial activities in natural environments such as soil. Most of what we know about bacteria has been discovered using laboratory cultures of single species. Unlike traditional laboratory conditions, in complex environments such as soil bacteria need to respond to fluctuating environmental parameters, and must interact with a large number of other microbial species. We have found that in the presence of multiple bacterial species and while dwelling in soil, bacteria behave in ways which have never been observed in laboratory culture experiments.
