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