About
My teams study the forest microbiome. How does incredible microbial diversity affect which trees are in a forest, forest carbon sequestration and climate change forecasts? Can we manipulate the forest microbiome to enhance and accelerate restoration outcomes? We focus on the ecology of mycorrhizal fungi – fungi that form a symbiosis with the roots of most plants on Earth – however we are broadly interested in links between microbes and ecosystems.
Awards
- Breakthrough Award, Inverse Magazine - This ecologist is on a mission to save the Earth’s microbiome - 2023
- Smithsonian Magazine - Sixteen Innovators to Watch in 2022
- Gene Likens Award - Awarded by the Biogeosciences Section of the Ecological Society of America - 2018
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Research Fellowship - 2015
Relevant Publications
- Anthony, M. A., et al. & Averill, C. (2024). Fungal community composition predicts forest carbon storage at a continental scale. Nature Communications, 15(2385). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46792-w
- Averill, C., Anthony, M. A., Baldrian, P., Finkbeiner, F., Van den Hoogen, J., Kiers, T., Kohout, P., Hirt, E., Smith, G. R., & Crowther, T. W. (2022). Defending Earth’s terrestrial microbiome. Nature Microbiology, 7(1717-1725). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01228-3
- Averill, C., Fortunel, C., Maynard, D. S., Van den Hoogen, J., Dietze, M. C., Bhatnagar, J. M., & Crowther, T. W. (2022). Alternative stable states of the forest mycobiome are maintained through positive feedbacks. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 6(375-382). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01663-9