Master's Research
The Jornada
My research is conducted at the Jornada Long-Term Ecological Research site located in New Mexico. I study the fungal and bacterial communities of the Chihuahuan Desert to understand how they are impacted by the shift from a grass dominated landscape to a shrub dominated landscape.
Grassland
The grass-dominated study site utilized for my research.
Shrubland
The shrub-dominated research site used for my research.
Decomposition Study
Mesh bags stuffed with leaf litter used to assess decomposition rates in the different vegetation types.
Microbial Respiration
Mason jars that have been converted into respiration chambers. The mesh bags from the above decomposition study are incubated in the sealed jars, allowing for carbon dioxide to accumulate in the jar. The quantity of carbon dioxide can then be measured. This allows me to assess how much carbon dioxide is being released by the microbes that are decomposing the leaf litter.
Metabarcoding
I took soil samples from the different vegetation types and extracted DNA from the soil samples. I then went through a "metabarocoding" procedure that allows me to get sequences of the fungi and bacteria in the soil. If you are interested in the details see the methodology in the paper linked below.
Sequence Processing
After following the metabarcoding procedure, the samples were sent for Illumina sequencing. I processed the sequences using DADA2. This pipeline allowed me to identify the fungal and bacterial taxa present in my samples.
Data Analyses
To assess potential differences in the microbial communities between the grass, mesquite, and transition vegetation types, I conducted a wide bredth of analyses and statistical tests. I assessed elements such as diversity metrics, co-occurence networks, and differential abundance of taxa.
Data Visualization Examples
beta diversity
Created in R with the packages ggplot2 and Vegan.
co-occurence network
Created in R and visualized with Gephi.
** data excluded until work enters publication
