“Synthetic biology intersects microbial ecology to facilitate untangling plant-microbe interactions contributing to plant productivity”

Dr. Larry Halverson,

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026

Agronomy 3140, 3:00 – 4:00 pm

Session Description: Dr. Halverson will discuss how synthetic biology integrated with microbial ecology will help reveal fundamental principles of plant-microbiome interactions.  This will include providing illustrations based on current research activities exploring the maize microbiome under varying nitrogen fertilization levels and tools that are being developed to better profile microbial communities.

Dr. Larry Halverson’s research program focuses on molecular physiology and ecology of microbes.  His approaches span organismal to molecular to ecological scales, including synthetic biology to reveal insights into microbial habitats and bacterial growth states.  He uses the model soil dwelling and rhizosphere colonizing bacterium Pseudomonas putida to reveal principles underlying molecular mechanisms in biofilm, bacteria-bacteria, and bacteria-plant lifestyles. Currently, his lab is exploring mechanisms contributing to bacterial enhancement of alga thermotolerance, maize and soybean microbiome assembly and how it changes over plant development and in response to the environment. Recently, he developed a CRISPR interference system for P. putida and a maize rhizosphere synthetic community (MARSc) to identify genes essential for P. putida co-existence in a multi-species community with a goal of revealing how gene networks change with changing community composition. He has a particular interest in understanding how corn microbiomes influence plant responses to management, particularly N-fertilization. To do this, he employs novel molecular and bioinformatic approaches with isotopic tracers to reveal arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and targeted bacterial species contributions to corn nitrogen nutrition.