Telephone                    (530) 752-8529

e-mail kjrice[at]ucdavis.edu

 FAX  (530) 752-4361

Department of Plant Sciences

Mail Stop 1

One Shields Avenue

University of California Davis, CA  95616

Stephanie S. Porter

Population Biology Graduate Group

University of California, Davis

One Shields Ave

Davis, CA 95616

ssporter@ucdavis.edu

Education:

 UC Davis Pop Bio Graduate Group

     Projected PhD in 2010

UC Berkeley, Dept. of Integrative Biology

     B.A., Honors thesis 2003

Research interests:

·        how microbial endosymbiont adaptation affects the niche of their hosts

·        how the outcome of endosymbiotic interactions vary with environments

·        how partner choice mechanisms may yield high fitness for hosts across environments

I’m researching a natural plant-rhizobia symbiosis to measure the relative importance of plant genotype vs. rhizobial genotype in persistence across serpentine and non-serpentine soils, and the influence of partner choice on the outcome of the symbiosis. I’m also researching whether spatial patterns of historical migration predict the scale of adaptation to soil chemistry and the co-adaptation between the plant and rhizobia. My research mainly involves field collections, greenhouse experiments and molecular genetics.