Microbes and the Universe

This place is for sharing my thoughts and academic works.

I offer consulting services in microbial ecology, mainly in urban and agricultural soils but I can look at any context from the air we breathe to the microbes on our skin.

I acknowledge the Barngarla and Kaurna first nations peoples, the traditional custodians of the lands where I live and work. I acknowledge their elders, past, present, and future.

Scientific Articles
Schoolyard Biodiversity Determines Short-Term Recovery of Disturbed Skin Microbiota in Children
Schoolyard Biodiversity Determines Short-Term Recovery of Disturbed Skin Microbiota in Children
Rare genera differentiate urban green space soil bacterial communities in three cities across the world
Rare genera differentiate urban green space soil bacterial communities in three cities across the world
Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Restoration Ecology: A Call to Listen Deeply, to Engage with, and Respect Indigenous Voices
Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Restoration Ecology: A Call to Listen Deeply, to Engage with, and Respect Indigenous Voices

If the restoration sector wishes to partner with Indigenous communities leading TEK efforts, it needs to understand established international agreements and proactively protect intellectual property and data sovereignty rights. To illustrate a theme of ethical engagement, we present risks to TEK integrity while highlighting engagement that has successfully promoted Indigenous leadership and self‐determination. We propose that a decade of responsible and respectful restoration will be achieved only with shared principles and an ethical code of conduct for TEK partnerships.

Transfer of environmental microbes to the skin and respiratory tract of humans after urban green space exposure
Transfer of environmental microbes to the skin and respiratory tract of humans after urban green space exposure

We show that exposure to urban green spaces can increase skin and nasal microbial diversity and alter human microbiota composition. Our study improves our understanding of human-environmental microbial interactions and suggests that increased exposure to diverse outdoor environments may increase the microbial diversity, which could lead to positive health outcomes for non-communicable diseases.

Revegetation of urban green space rewilds soil microbiotas with implications for human health and urban design
Revegetation of urban green space rewilds soil microbiotas with implications for human health and urban design

We provide the first evidence, as far as we know, that revegetation can improve urban soil microbiota diversity toward a more natural, biodiverse state by creating more wild habitat conditions.

Naturally-diverse airborne environmental microbial exposures modulate the gut microbiome and may provide anxiolytic benefits in mice
Naturally-diverse airborne environmental microbial exposures modulate the gut microbiome and may provide anxiolytic benefits in mice

Our results point to an intriguing new hypothesis: that biodiverse soils may represent an important supplementary source of butyrate-producing bacteria capable of resupplying the mammalian gut microbiome, with potential for gut health and mental health benefits.

Soil bacterial community differences along a coastal restoration chronosequence
Soil bacterial community differences along a coastal restoration chronosequence
A soil archaeal community responds to a decade of ecological restoration
A soil archaeal community responds to a decade of ecological restoration
Can bacterial indicators of a grassy woodland restoration inform ecosystem assessment and microbiota-mediated human health?
Can bacterial indicators of a grassy woodland restoration inform ecosystem assessment and microbiota-mediated human health?

We found two key indicator groups emerged: ‘opportunistic taxa’ that decreased in relative abundance with restoration and more stable and specialist, ‘niche-adapted taxa’ that increased. 

Relating Urban Biodiversity to Human Health With the ‘Holobiont’ Concept
Relating Urban Biodiversity to Human Health With the ‘Holobiont’ Concept

The health of holobionts, including humans, is fundamentally linked to the health of ecosystems and potentially driven by the state of environmental microbiota.

Latest Essays

Essays
I’ve moved!
I’ve moved!

I’ve moved my essays over to Vocal Media and Medium

Per le Madri
Per le Madri

Stories of mothers

Australia: a deeper date
Australia: a deeper date

We can’t change the past, but we can work with it. When Australia day is a celebration of an honest and active reconciliation, rather than genocide and colonial terror, then we can earnestly celebrate this country.

Gods of worlds, subjects of one
Gods of worlds, subjects of one

Conner instructs Duncan into a thought experiment, to close his eyes and explain his experience. I do this too. Stripping away the objects as I know them – my butt, my elbows, my scanty y-fronts. My experience is now just temperature, pressure, sound, and darkness. The biggest trip is focussing on the pressure. I’m not sitting in my chair anymore, there is just pressure around my body and I’m in a dark void.

By having consciousness of this subjective, incomplete perception we have the ability to move between the worlds behind the world.

Modern ape
Modern ape

What I had experienced as an emotional sleepwalker during my late teens and early twenties was what is known as the ‘extinction of experience’. This process is a product of our modern world and we get sucked into it in all sorts of casual, insidious ways. It is the cultural forgetting of our basic psychological needs, of our animalism.

Manhood
Manhood
The Rainbow Argument
The Rainbow Argument

When mum started talking about what she should do with the boxes in her shed I completely zoned out and started thinking about what I should do with the boxes inside my head. I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot over the last few years. Why do we take sides? Why do we identify with material things? Why aren’t we allowed to change our minds or say I mostly disagree? Why do we tear each other down for being wrong when, in all probability, we’re both right in some way?

An imposter, to impose.
An imposter, to impose.

Society gaslights us, makes us feel inadequate to hide that it is the fraud. Our constructed systems build us as imposters, but what if we turned around and began to impose, to agitate and activate, to throw stones and fire arrows at society, the real imposter?

Where Art thou?
Where Art thou?

Art is the great expressor, and without expression the world becomes petrified and white. Ash and chalk that blows away with the wind, with no intention or capacity to sit in the moment. When we are drained of our colours the world will be too bleak for us to survive as humans. We will become ill, then robotic.

Ellipses through love and shame.
Ellipses through love and shame.

“Baby, I saw a comet. He was so beautiful, and I kissed him. I kissed him to feel something new, to be free, and to see what I felt about you in that singular moment.”

I know this is the road to freedom. I’ve thought about it for eons, but this is my first experience, I’m new here too.