The research in my laboratory integrates data from microbiology, genomics/metagenomics, ecology, physiology, anthropology and biostatistics to address broad questions of how microbes and hosts interact. One focus is on how these interactions drive microbial diversity, and which aspects and circumstances define pathogen and commensal microbiota. We study diversity of the bacterial microbiota symbiotic relations with vertebrates. In particular, we study symbiosis in the foregut of mammals and birds, effect of lyfestyle on the microbiota of animals and humans, developmental aspects of the microbiota, antibiotic resistance in the microbiota, and bacterial adaptations to their hosts in a system of long-term colonization such as Helicobacter pylori in humans. Technical aspects of our research involve DNA amplification, phylogenetic analysis, pyrosequencing and metagenomics.