Professor
Département des sciences biologiques
Université du Québec à Montréal
Canada Research Chair in Plant Microbiomes
Email: kembel.steven_w@uqam.ca
Personnel website: http://kembellab.ca
Expertises
- Quantitative ecology
- Bioinformatics
- Ecophylogenetics
- Metagenomics
- Environmental sequencing
- Microbial ecology
Research interests
Research in the Kembel lab focuses on plant and microbial community and functional ecology, evolution, bioinformatics, and host-microbe interactions. A key research question is: How do microbes influence the ecology and evolution of their hosts, and vice versa? We use high-throughput environmental sequencing and bioinformatics methods to quantify host-microbe interactions in hosts ranging from humans to plants. We are studying the effects of microbes living on leaves and roots on the growth, fitness, and function of their plant hosts, and determining how host functional traits and evolutionary history can influence microbial community assembly on leaves and roots in different ecosytems. Another research focus in the lab is the development of statistical and bioinformatics methods and software to allow biologists to analyze complex metagenomic data sets.