Research Interests

My research interests encompass a broad range of microbial ecology and evolutionary questions. What unites these research areas is my interest in understanding the feedbacks between ecosystem properties and microbial community structure and function with regards to both ecosystem and evolutionary processes. My previous research focused on examining the effects of varying degrees of selective pressures on microbial evolution at the molecular and ecosystem scale by assessing potential mechanisms involved in the co-selection of antibiotic and metal resistance. My current research investigates hydrologic and thermodynamic controls on microbial community dynamics and biogeochemical cycling in floodplain ecosystems.

Publications

• Fricke, W.F., M.S. Wright, A.H. Lindell, D. Harkins, C. Baker-Austin, J. Ravel, and R. Stepanauskas. In press. The environmental resistance gene pool: insights from the genome sequence of the multidrug-resistant environmental isolate E. coli SECEC SMS-3-5. Journal of Bacteriology.
• Baker-Austin, C, R Stepanauskas, A Lindell, MS Wright, RC Tuckfield, J Gooch, L Warner, J Oliver, and JV McArthur. In press. Widespread antibiotic resistance in the marine pathogen Vibrio vulnificus. Microbial Ecology.
• Wright, M.S., C. Baker-Austin, A.H. Lindell, R. Stepanauskas, H.W. Stokes, and JV. McArthur. 2008. Influence of Industrial Contamination on Mobile Genetic Elements: Class 1 Integron Abundance and Gene Cassette Structure in Aquatic Bacterial Communities. The ISME Journal 2:417-428.
• Wright, M.S., G. Loeffler Peltier, R. Stepanuaskas, JV. McArthur. 2006. Bacterial tolerances to metals and antibiotics in metal-contaminated and reference streams. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 58:293-302.
• Baker-Austin, C*., M.S. Wright*, R. Stepanauskas, JV. McArthur. 2006. Co-selection of antibiotic and metal resistance. Trends in Microbiology 14:176-182. *Authors contributed equally to this work.
• Wright, M.S. and A.P. Covich. 2005. Relative importance of bacteria and fungi in a tropical headwater stream: Leaf decomposition and invertebrate feeding preference. Microbial Ecology 49(4):536-546.
• Wright, M.S. and A.P. Covich. 2005. The effect of macroinvertebrate exclusion on leaf breakdown rates in a tropical headwater stream. Biotropica 37(3):403-408.

Nyack Floodplain blog

Curriculum Vitae