Dr Catriona Thompson

Catriona is a microbiologist fascinated by the role plasmids play in shaping the ecology and evolution of microbes in complex environments.

The microbial communities that live around the roots of plants play a crucial role in their health. These communities are not only home to microbes, but the mobile genetic elements which exist with them (e.g. plasmids, bacteriophage etc). The presence of mobile genetic elements fundamentally changes how microbes function in soil ecosystems. We discovered that plasmids encode copies of bacterial genes that are able to drive both short-term behavioural and long-term evolutionary changes in their host.

Catriona’s research focuses on understanding how plasmids have evolved to control host behaviour, how they spread through populations in the soil and how they shape the complex interactions between microbes and plants. By understanding how these mobile elements shape microbial communities, we are able to design strategies to improve soil health and strengthen global food security.