Rafael D'Andrea
Stony Brook University, NY·Ecology & Evolution
How can so many species coexist when they compete for the same limited resources? Classic competition theory says that competing species can coexist only if each specializes on a different resource.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Microbiology & Immunology
Mathematics & Statistics
- Topics
soil microbial communities
soil bacteria
microbial ecology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Build a trait-based multispecies competition model for soil bacteria in which species take up carbon sources at temperature-dependent rates and exchange byproducts through cross-feeding.
- Test whether competition combined with dispersal spontaneously produces clusters of species with highly overlapping carbon preferences within clusters and little overlap between them, using simulations and clustering analysis.
- Determine how environmental conditions and dispersal regimes control the number and species makeup of these clusters, using computer simulations and statistical inference.
More about the research
Yet many communities contain far more species than resources. Soil microbes are an extreme case, since they are among the most diverse communities on Earth and all compete for carbon molecules, their main source of energy and building material. This collaborative project develops theory to explain how such diverse communities might share resources.
Why it matters
Soil microbes drive nutrient cycling, and temperature changes are likely to alter how they compete. A predictive theory of how microbial diversity arises from competition for carbon could help ecologists forecast how soil communities, and the nutrient cycling they perform, will respond to accelerating environmental change.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jerome Goddard
Auburn University at Montgomery, AL·Mathematics & Statistics
Test whether predators change density-dependent emigration, Allee effects and prey stability, using experiments with two Tribolium flour beetle species and a shared natural enemy.
William Harcombe
University of Minnesota, MN·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether mutualism changes the combined effect of antibiotic pairs by running over 3,900 growth experiments comparing Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica in monoculture versus obligate cross-feeding co-culture.
Sara Miller
University of Missouri-St Louis, MO·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether body color patterns across Polistes paper wasp species fit character displacement or other ecological processes, using a large global dataset of physical traits.
The school
Stony Brook University: 32 labs on PI Pages, $319M a year on research, 289 research doctorates a year.
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