Tiffany Lowe-Power

Tiffany Lowe-Power heads a team of plant pathologists and microbiologists driven to uncover the behavioral and fitness adaptations that allow bacteria to colonize plants and cause disease. Lab members use the Ralstonia-plant model as a reductionist microbiome system to investigate molecular microbial ecology, host specificity, and host physiology. The questions they address are broadly relevant to vascular and nonvascular plant-colonizing bacteria. The research focus is two pronged and includes how the host environment shapes bacterial behavior and how xylem pathogens alter the host environment.