I am interested in understanding how transitions to the environments impact host microbiome symbiotic relationships.  One hypothesis is that the success of some invasive species is derived from their ability to manipulate their surface microbiome, deterring disease and the build-up of epiphytes. 

Beneficial bacteria provide vitamins, nitrogen, and the host carbon compounds resulting in advantageous symbiotic relationships. However, we can not rule out that among the different bacterial species associated with the algal phycosphere, some of them might be opportunistic or even able of pathogenic behavior!

Using a combined approach of pretreatment of plant tissues, hybridization, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and computational analysis, we are able to generate taxonomic-informative high-resolution images of the phyllosphere microbial community in situ. 

E L Peredo, S Simmons (2018) Leaf-FISH: Microscale Imaging of Bacterial Taxa on Phyllosphere. Front. Microbiol., 09 January 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.02669

Although metagenomics reveals that natural virus communities harbor vast genetic diversity, the spatiotemporal dynamics of viral diversity in the wild are seldom tested, especially across small geographic scales. In this paper, the RNA viral community of white clover (Trifolium repens L.), growing on a grassy lawn in Woods Hole Village (Falmouth, MA, USA). 

Bono L, RJ Orton, EL Peredo, HG Morrison, M Sistrom, SL Simmons, PE Turner. (2019) Spatiotemporal dynamics of RNA viruses associated with white clover (Trifolium repens L.) bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/772475