Collaborative Projects

RUI: Limits to the effects of contemporary evolution on communities
- with Casey terHorst and Tom Miller. 
We investigate the eco-evolutionary dynamics of pitcher plant inquiline communities in an effort to establish how dispersal influences rapid evolution and community diversity and composition. 

Roles of dispersal and succession on community composition and function
We investigate how dispersal and colonization alter bacterial assembly and function in pitcher plant microbial communities. We focus on the degradative abilities of bacteria, predation and dispersal of bacterivore protozoans and successional processes of the microbial community as a whole
  • Cuellar-Gempeler, C. terHorst C., O. Mason and Miller, T. E. Predator dispersal regimes impacts prey community diversity and composition in pitcher plants. In preparation.
  • Cuellar-Gempeler, C. terHorst C., and Miller, T. E. Predation but not succession control bacterial degradation in pitcher plant inquiline communities. In preparation.

Evolution in community context 
-with Tom Miller and Olivia Mason.
​Rapid evolution and ecological processes can co-occur with important consequences for local and regional diversity patterns. We set out to uncover the role of evolution in community context and its consequences for trophic dynamics.
  • E. Canter, C. Cuellar-Gempeler, A. Pastore, T.E. Miller and O. Mason, 2018. Predator identity more than predator richness structures aquatic microbial assemblages in Sarracenia purpurea leaves. Ecology. DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2128

​Past Projects

Sources of colonists: species pools driving crab-associated microbial communities
How do different species pools interact with habitat filters? Ecological theory suggests that species pool size and composition will have important effects on local communities. This study investigated how bacteria from different types of bacteria colonize habitats within species of crabs (Uca sp).  
  • NEW! Cuellar-Gempeler, C. and P. Munguia. 2019. Habitat filters drive temporal turnover in microbial communities associated with shore crabs (Pachygrapsus crassipes). Oecologia 191 (4): 957-970.
  • Cuellar-Gempeler, C. and M. Leibold. 2019. Key colonist pools and habitat filters mediate diversity of fiddler crab-associated microbial communities. Ecology 100 (4): e02628
  • Cuellar-Gempeler, C.  and M. Leibold, 2018. Multiple colonist pools shape fiddler crab-associated microbial communities. The ISME Journal 12: 825-837.

Fiddler crab influences on sediment bacteria
Bacterial communities in the forest sediments drive nutrient turnover. However, fiddler crabs and other detritivores are instrumental in altering sediment biochemistry. Here, we show that fiddler crabs consume bacteria reducing richness but also serve as a refuge for certain species. 
  • Cuellar-Gempeler, C. and P. Munguia. 2013. Fiddler crabs (Uca thayeri, Brachyura: Ocypodidae) affect bacterial assemblages in mangrove forest sediments. Community Ecology 14(1): 59-66.