Josh Fowler

Increasing Prevalence of Plant‐Fungal Symbiosis Across Two Centuries of Environmental Change

🔗 buff.ly/b7IL4MJ
@joshuacfowler.bsky.social @jmoutouama.bsky.social

BRIT (@fwbgcommunity.bsky.social), Mercer Botanic Gardens, MOBOT (@mobotgarden.bsky.social), the Shirley Tucker herbarium at LSU, Texas A&M, UT Austin, and U of Kansas, Okl. State and the Univ. of Oklahoma

I'm thankful for all the herbaria that made this research possible for myself and coauthors (@jmoutouama.bsky.social and Tom Miller) including:

We identified fungal hyphae within the seeds, and built a spatially varying coefficients model to identity trends in prevalence of the interaction across each host's distribution. There were strong increases in endophyte prevalence, associated with seasonal climate drivers.

Over three years, I visited herbaria and collected seeds from plant hosts that lived between 1824 and 2019. Handling specimens is such a unique experience and I love the connection to past scientists and organisms.

Newly published in @globalchangebio.bsky.social, we look within seeds of historic herbarium specimens for changes in the prevalence of beneficial fungal symbionts in response to climate change drivers. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Unraveling complexity in climate change effects on beneficial plant–microbe interactions: mechanisms, resilience, and future directions Plant microbiomes have the potential to mitigate the impacts of climate change, yet both the complexity of climate change and the complexity of plant–microbe interactions make applications and future....

Check out our new Tansley review on climate, plants, and microbes! I enjoyed working with a team of friendly and knowledgeable scientists.
@meafkhami.bsky.social
@kerricrawford.bsky.social
@aclassen.bsky.social
@johnstinchcombe.bsky.social
@damianmicroeco.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1111/nph....

My 2nd dissertation chapter is out in Plant, Cell, & Environment!

We use a model legume to assess how plant host genotype and microbes non-additively interact to shape plant growth and disease ecology.

Check it out here: doi.org/10.1111/pce....

Forecasting range shifts of dioecious plants under climate change | PNAS Global climate change has triggered an urgent need for predicting the reorganization of Earth’s biodiversity. For dioecious species (those with sep...

Excited to share our paper in @pnas.org with Aldo Compagnoni and Tom Miller !
Climate change may push dioecious plants toward female-biased sex ratios which will impair seed production. Ignoring this feedback underestimates range shifts. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Wonderful paper, Jacob! super cool to see your results out!

Florida citrus lands offer hope for habitat recovery Florida citrus production has been in decline due to widespread citrus greening disease introduced as early as 2004, also known as Huanglongbing (HLB). But is there some lemonade to be

Hot off the digital presses of the Highlands News-Sun: www.midfloridanewspapers.com/highlands_ne...

Wow! I love this! Great news, Rafa!

To understand how climate change affects natural ecosystems we need to know how warming influences species interactions. In our newest paper we show that predator-prey interactions fundamentally change across latitude leading to context dependent effects of warming. 🧪
doi.org/10.1111/oik....

Central Taxa Are Keystone Microbes During Early Succession For decades, microbiome network theory has predicted that highly connected ‘hub’ taxa act as keystone species that disproportionately affect their communities. However, this has never been empiricall...

My dissertation chapter is in Ecology Letters!

We tested microbiome network theory empirically in nature and found central early colonisers significantly (1) enhanced biodiversity, (2) reshaped assembly trajectories and (3) increased recruitment of non-peripheral microbes.

doi.org/10.1111/ele....