Eric Benbow, Ph.D.

Benbow is studying how complex communities (e.g., aquatic insects or microbes) change, are distributed and can be used in various applications in medicine, disease and environmental management. Within entomology and aquatic ecology, his lab asks three general questions: 1) Is insect fitness influenced by the community of microbes living in or on them?; 2) What are the ecological interactions of insects with the microbial communities associated with their food resources?; and, 3) How can this information be used to inform resources management, human health and forensics? With a joint appointment in the College of Osteopathic Medicine and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, his lab seeks to answer these insect-microbe questions for translation into human health applications in addition to environmental health. Given the rich history of research in insect-microbe interactions that has focused on vectoring pathogens and co-evolved symbionts, coupled with the advanced ability to identify culturable and non-culturable bacteria using high throughput sequencing, a new generation of inquiry into the importance of the insect microbiome and their interactions in nature has tremendous potential for insect science. His research has recently been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, United State Forest Service and the National Institute of Justice, with previous funding received from the National Institutes of Health and United State Geological Survey. In addition to his research program Benbow actively serves the university, local and national communities, including review panels of national and international funding agencies.  Recently he has served on three appointed committees of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on reviewing the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan. This service has resulted in three published reports within the Academies.  The Benbow Lab was recently (June 2019) awarded a 4-year, $2.5M NSF Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease grant to study how Mycobacterium ulcerans may have evolved in the environment and with animals hosts to the be the pathogen of Buruli ulcer disease.