Soil-Plant Microbiomes
The Soil-Plant Microbiomes group explores the diversity, composition and functions of microbiota in soil-plant ecosystems, and uses the microbes to improve the agricultural productivity and environmental health.
Research in the Soil-Plant Microbiomes group focuses on the assembly and ecology of soil microbiota (bacteria, fungi, archaea, protist and virus) and soil fauna (eg: nematode and collembola) in soil ecosystems, and:
- Their interactions with plant-associated microbiome
- How these are influenced by biotic and abiotic factors and agricultural management practices
- The development of microbiome-based technologies to improve nutrients using efficiency and agricultural productivity, while to mitigate the negative effects of agricultural practices to the environment.
News and events
Contact the team
Soil microbial testing services have strong capabilities in advanced bio-molecular and physicochemical analyses of functional microbes-mediated carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), sulphur (S) and other elemental information in order to understand the distribution and diversity of functional microbial genes in soils.
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High-throughput quantitative PCR for soil molecular biology
The Wafergen SmartChip Real-time PCR system is a complete, high-throughput solution that enables an unrivalled level of assay and sample format flexibility.
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DNA extraction for soil molecular biology
QIAGEN QIAcube Connect is designed to perform fully automated purification of nucleic acids and proteins in molecular biology applications.
Our researchers and graduate research (PhD/MPhil) students.
Professor Jim (Jizheng) He
Professor (Molecular Soil Ecology)
Jim He’s research employs advanced bio-molecular and physicochemical approaches to understand the distribution and diversity of microbial communities in soils, and the processes and mechanisms of microbes-mediated C, N and other elemental cycling.
Dr Hang-Wei Hu
Lecturer in Soil Biology and Health
Hang-Wei Hu is a soil molecular microbial ecologist with research interests broadly defined within the areas of soil biology and health, plant-microbe interactions, and environmental microbiology.
Dr Qinglin Chen
Research Fellow in Antibiotic Resistance
Qinglin Chen’s research is focused on the plant and soil microbiome, and their relationship with antibiotic resistome in the context of human interruptions.
Qing Xie
Research Assistant
Qing Xie is a research assistant in soil molecular ecology, and is also responsible for management of key research facilities and instruments in Soil Molecular Ecology Labs.
Eric Ireland
PhD candidate
Eric Ireland’s PhD project is focused on the microbial communities regulating the dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium process in various terrestrial ecosystems.
Chaoyu Li
PhD candidate
Chaoyu Li’s PhD project is focused on the newly-discovered complete ammonia oxidizers (comammox Nitrospira) and their contribution to soil nitrification.
Zhenzhen Yan
PhD candidate
Zhenzhen Yan’s PhD project is focused on the biogeographic distribution patterns of antibiotic resistance genes in urban and natural ecosystems.
Bao Anh Nguyen
PhD candidate
Bao Anh Nguyen’s PhD project is focused on the interactions of protists and bacteria and its consequence for evolution of antibiotic resistance in soils.
Group members
Graduate researchers
The Soil-Plant Microbiomes Group has taken advantage of rapidly improving high-throughput sequencing approaches to answer important ecological questions regarding soil/plant microbiome composition and diversity, soil biogeochemical N cycling processes and transmission of antibiotic resistance genes in soil-plant systems.