Dr. Luiz Alberto Domeignoz Horta

I am fascinated by the who, when, where, and how of microbial communities and their impacts on ecosystem functioning. As a broad trained microbiologist, I aim to work linking various disciplines (molecular biology techniques, fundamental microbiology, stable isotopes and soil biogeochemistry) to foster our understanding of how microorganisms drive ecosystem functioning and to evaluate how we can potentially engineer microorganisms to achieve desired functions. Engineering microbial communities requires understanding how microorganisms will respond to current and future environmental changes and how they interact with other soil organisms. Therefore, another key theme of my research focus on how environmental changes (e.g. warming and land-use change) alters their physiology. I am also progressively integrating other soil organisms into my research to gain a broader understanding on soil functioning.

Ongoing projects include improving our understanding of how microbial physiology changes in response to chronic warming, and how it responds to plant diversification strategies. I am also currently leading a project investigating how earthworms influence microbial growth efficiency under contrasting abiotic conditions and amendments. I am also collaborating on two projects addressing multi-taxa interactions. One uses molecular methods and stable isotopes to study the diet of detritivores and evaluate how their fecal characteristics determine their fate in soils. The second project examines how multi-taxa interactions change in mountain grasslands along a gradient of land-use intensity.

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Orcid : https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4618-6253

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luiz-Alberto-Domeignoz-Horta-2