Dr. Kieran Bates

E-mail: kieran.bates@zoo.ox.ac.uk

My research focuses on how microbes interact with each other, their environment and the multicellular hosts that they colonise over space and time. I am particularly interested in the role of microbial communities in shaping ecological dynamics in nature and what impact these communities may have on the evolution of host resistance to infection.

Publications

Li, J.D., Bates, K.A., Hector, T.E., Hoang, K.L., Knowles, S.C., King, K.C. 2023. Experimental temperatures shape host microbiome diversity and composition. Global Change Biology 29, 41-56.

Wu-Chuang, A., Bates, K.A., Obregon, D., Estrada-Peña, A., King, K.C.*, Cabezas-Cruz, A.*. 2022. Rapid evolution of a novel protective symbiont into keystone taxon in C.elegans microbiota. Scientific Reports 12, 14045.

Bates, K.A., Neiman, M., Higgins, C., King, K.C. 2022. Turning the tide on sex and the microbiota in aquatic animals. Hydrobiologia. Accepted.

Bates, K.A., Sommer, U., Hopkins, K.P. et al. 2022. Microbiome function predicts amphibian chytridiomycosis disease dynamics. Microbiome. In press.

Bates, K.A., King, K.C. 2021. Microbe of the month: Leucobacter. Trends in Microbiology.

Bates, K.A., Bolton, J.S., King, K.C. 2021. A globally ubiquitous symbiont can drive experimental host evolution. Molecular Ecology 30, 3882-3892.

Stevens, E., Bates, K.A., King, K.C. 2021. Host microbiota can facilitate pathogen infection. PLoS Pathogens 17, e1009514.

Marcogliese, D.J., King, K.C., Bates, K.A. 2021. Effects of multiple stressors on northern leopard frogs in agricultural wetlands. Parasitology 148, 827-834.

Bates, K.A., Shelton, J.M.G., Mercier, V.L., Hopkins, K., Harrison, X.A., Petrovan, S.O., Fisher, M.C. 2019. Captivity and infection by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans perturb the amphibian skin microbiome. Frontiers in Microbiology 10, 1834.

Ghosh, P., Fisher, M.C., Bates, K.A. 2018. Tackling emerging fungal threats: a one health perspective. Frontiers in Genetics 9, 376.

Bates, K.A., Clare, F.C., O’Hanlon, S., Bosch, J., Brookes, L., Hopkins, K., McLaughlin, E., Daniel, E., Garner, T.W.J., Fisher, M.C., Harrison, X.A. 2018. Amphibian chytridiomycosis outbreak dynamics are linked with host skin bacterial community structure. Nature Communications 9, 693.

O’Hanlon, S…(56 authors)..Bates, K.A...Fisher, M.C. 2018. Recent Asian origin of chytrid fungi causing global amphibian declines. Science 360, 621-627.

Fisher, M.C., Ghosh, P., Shelton, J.M.G., Bates, K.A. et al. 2018. Development and worldwide use of a non-lethal and minimal population-level impact protocols for the isolation of chytrids from amphibians. Scientific Reports 8, 7772.

Dillon, M.J., Bowkett, A.E., Bungard, M.J., Beckman, K., O’Brien, M., Bates, K.A., Fisher, M.C., Stevens, J.R. Thornton, C.R. 2017. Tracking the amphibian pathogens Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans by using a highly specific monoclonal antibody and lateral-flow technology. Microbial Biotechnology 10, 381-394.

Education

2018 PhD, Imperial College London. “Drivers underpinning heterogeneity in host-pathogen systems”

2014 Biological Sciences MSci, University College London. “Modelling infection dynamics of the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in the Majorcan Midwife Toad, Alytes muletensis”.

Awards

St. Hilda’s College Oxford Junior Research Fellowship

Christ Church College Oxford Research Grant, £28000

NERC environmental OMICS course bursary, £2105

NBAF Metabolome Grant, £33000

NERC PhD Studentship, £91,515

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