About

Lisa Belden is a Professor of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech, with her office located in Derring Hall. Her research focuses on community ecology in relation to disease dynamics. Current projects in her lab include examining the role of species diversity in trematode parasite dynamics within wildlife populations and investigating the role of symbiotic skin microbes in preventing amphibian infections caused by the chytrid fungus, which has led to declines in amphibian populations worldwide. Belden has been a faculty member at Virginia Tech since 2016, having previously served as an Associate Professor from 2011 to 2016 and as an Assistant Professor from 2004 to 2011. She has also held positions as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and was a visiting scientist at Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador. Her educational background includes a Ph.D. in Zoology from Oregon State University and a B.A. in Biology from the University of Montana. Throughout her career, Belden has received numerous awards, including the VT Fralin Life Sciences Institute Innovator Award, the VT Scholar of the Week, and the Outstanding Research and Teaching Awards from the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech. Her research contributions are recognized for advancing understanding in ecology, disease dynamics, and amphibian conservation.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Computer Science
• Zoology
• Statistics
• Telecommunications
• Biological system
• Mathematics
• Bioinformatics
• Demography
• Genetics
• Physics
• Statistical physics

Selected publications

• Early life exposure to the antibiotic tetracycline alters in‐hive development of the adult honey bee gut microbiome

  Ecosphere · 2026-02-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Early life events, including disturbances, can shape host‐associated bacterial community structure and function. We sought to determine whether exposure to tetracycline, an antibiotic commonly used in beekeeping, during early gut microbiome development in hives affects honey bee gut microbiota later in life. Newly emerged bees were collected off brood frames from eight hives, treated with tetracycline or sucrose (control), and returned to their hive of origin. Bees were recollected 7 ( N = 8 hives) and 14 ( N = 3 hives) days after emergence, guts were dissected, and gut communities were characterized using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. For the hives sampled at both time points, a 16S quantitative PCR assay was used to estimate total bacterial abundance. Seven days after emergence, gut communities of tetracycline‐treated bees differed from controls based on relative abundance and presence/absence of taxa and had lower phylogenetic diversity and richness than controls. According to our differential abundance analysis, Lactobacillus , which is part of the core honey bee gut microbiome, was differentially abundant, with a reduced relative abundance in the antibiotic‐exposed communities compared to controls. Our results suggest that disturbances that occur in early adulthood shape the honey bee gut microbiome throughout life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Author response for "Modelling <i>Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis</i> Presence and Intensity Using High Spatial and Temporal Resolution Weather Data"

  2025-05-31

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Natural recolonization of the amphibian skin bacterial community following disruption by antibiotics"

  2025-05-16

  peer-reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Modelling <i>Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis</i> Presence and Intensity Using High Spatial and Temporal Resolution Weather Data"

  2025-06-24

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Natural recolonization of the amphibian skin bacterial community following disruption by antibiotics

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2025-06-01

  articleSenior author

  Despite the ubiquity of microbial communities, we lack a thorough understanding of how host-associated communities respond to disturbances. We explored the response of the skin bacterial communities of Notophthalmus viridescens (eastern, red-spotted newts) to disturbance by exposing newts to antibiotics, returning them to pond enclosures and assessing bacterial community composition through periodic skin swabs over 28 days. Through 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and qPCR, we observed immediate shifts in bacterial abundance and community composition following antibiotic exposure. Bacterial communities recovered compositionally by the experiment’s conclusion; however, bacterial abundance did not recover to pre-exposure levels. Additionally, community composition on all newts shifted over the course of the experiment. Our results provide evidence for lasting consequences of disturbance on bacterial communities, highlight the potential disconnect between recovery in terms of community structure and bacterial abundance and emphasize the importance of incorporating natural community shifts into evaluations of community recovery.

  PublisherDOI

• Modelling <i>Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis</i> Presence and Intensity Using High Spatial and Temporal Resolution Weather Data

  Diversity and Distributions · 2025-07-01

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Aim Species distribution models (SDMs) are an important tool for conservation efforts, and when constructed using high‐quality predictor and response data could be useful for identifying portions of a species' range that could serve as refugia from risks that are influenced by environmental conditions, such as pathogens. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis ( Bd ) is a fungal pathogen that causes lethal disease in amphibians but is also sensitive to environmental factors including temperature and humidity. SDMs built using high spatial and temporal resolution environmental data may be able to help identify environmental refugia from Bd for amphibians. In this study, we create our own high‐resolution remotely sensed environmental dataset and use high‐quality presence/absence survey data to build new Bd SDMs of Panama. Location Panama. Taxa The amphibian chytrid fungus Bd and amphibian communities. Methods We used environmental values from various time periods prior to Bd testing (lag of 2, 7, 15, 30 days) and levels of Bd infection intensity from survey swabs (present, medium intensity, high intensity) to run multiple Boosted Regression Trees to model environmental suitability for Bd and evaluated their performance. Results Our results indicated that the 15‐day period prior to testing was the most predictive time‐period for Bd environmental suitability in Panama. Additionally, we found that we could not only model the distribution of the pathogen itself but discern unique spatial and temporal patterns of high infection intensities often associated with disease outbreaks. We created daily predictive maps of the probability of Bd occurrence and of medium and high infection intensities in Panama from 2005 to 2018 and averaged them by season. Main Conclusions Higher environmental suitability for Bd tended to be found at higher elevations, a pattern observed in previous Bd field studies and consistent with Bd 's physiological requirements. The high temporal and spatial resolution of these maps gives a unique insight into exploring temporal patterns of Bd intensity in specific locations and to identify environmental refugia from Bd for amphibian reintroduction efforts and surveys for relict populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Amphibian Bacterial Communities Assemble Variably Among Host Species, Across Development, and Between Similar Habitats

  Integrative and Comparative Biology · 2025-04-14 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Symbiotic host-associated microbial communities are nearly ubiquitous and are often essential to host growth and development. The assembly of these communities on hosts is the result of a combination of the processes of selection, dispersal, and drift. For some species, essential symbionts are quickly acquired from the environment during embryonic development, while others may vertically acquire symbionts from parents. For amphibians with complex life cycles that undergo metamorphosis, an additional physiological transition from larval to adult forms may represent another distinct developmental window for bacterial colonization. Prior research has demonstrated that metamorphosis impacts the composition of amphibian-associated bacterial communities; however, we do not know whether similar shifts occur during metamorphosis across different amphibian species. To more clearly understand patterns in microbiome development across host species within a given area, we assessed the bacterial communities associated with eggs from five locally occurring amphibian species and tadpoles and juveniles from four of the species. Additionally, to determine if stochasticity result in varied microbiome composition among conspecifics, we raised one species, spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer), in outdoor 1000 L mesocosms. Through 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we detected distinct bacterial communities across amphibian species and development. Additionally, we found that tadpoles harbored different communities of bacteria in the different mesocosms, suggesting that stochasticity may play a large role in bacterial assembly on tadpoles. Our results serve to deepen our understanding of natural shifts in amphibian-associated bacterial communities and how these shifts are host-species dependent. Additionally, this study provides support for the idea that stochasticity in the form of drift or priority effects can drive individual variation in microbiome composition among hosts.

  PublisherDOI

• Utilizing a novel fecal sampling method to examine resistance of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) gut microbiome to a low dose of tetracycline

  PLoS ONE · 2025-01-16 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Disruption of host-associated microbial communities can have detrimental impacts on host health. However, the capacity of individual host-associated microbial communities to resist disturbance has not been well defined. Using a novel fecal sampling method for honey bees (Apis mellifera), we examined the resistance of the honey bee gut microbiome to disruption from a low dose of the antibiotic, tetracycline (4.5 μg). Prior to the experiment, bacterial communities from fecal samples were compared to communities from dissected whole guts of the same individuals to ensure fecal samples accurately represented the gut microbiome. Fecal samples were collected from lab-caged honey bees prior to, and five days after, tetracycline exposure to assess how antibiotic disturbance affected the communities of individuals. We used metrics of alpha and beta diversity calculated from 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequences to compare gut community structure. Low dose tetracycline exposure did not consistently change honey bee gut microbiome structure, but there was individual variation in response to exposure and specific taxa (one ASV assigned to Lactobacillus kunkeei and one ASV in the genus Bombella) were differentially abundant following tetracycline treatment. To assess whether individual variation could be influenced by the presence of tetracycline resistance genes, we quantified the abundance of tet(B) and tet(M) with qPCR. The abundance of tet(M) prior to tetracycline treatment was negatively correlated with change in community membership, assessed by difference in Jaccard dissimilarity over the five-day experiment. Our results suggest that the honey bee gut microbiome has some ability to resist or recover from antibiotic-induced change, specific taxa may vary in their susceptibility to tetracycline exposure, and antibiotic resistance genes may contribute to gut microbiome resistance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Re-Evaluation of Zygocotyle (Digenea, Paramphistomoidea) Based on New Genetic Data Supports Its Synonymization with Wardius

  Journal of Parasitology · 2025-02-06 · 4 citations

  article

  The Zygocotylidae Ward, 1917 is a compact family of amphistome digeneans that until now comprised 2 genera, each represented by a single species: Zygocotyle lunata (Diesing, 1836) Stunkard, 1916 and Wardius zibethicus Barker and East, 1915 in Barker 1915. Despite highly similar morphology, these genera are separated based on the presence (Zygocotyle) or absence (Wardius) of posterolateral projections (=lappets) on the ventral sucker and esophageal bulb. In the present study, we generated partial large ribosomal subunit (28S), internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) rDNA, and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) sequences of Z. lunata from several hosts (12 avian and 1 rodent species) throughout North and South America as well as 28S and COI sequences of W. zibethicus from muskrat in North America. The newly generated 28S sequences were used for sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis. The COI sequences were used for species-level comparisons. Our analysis revealed a close relationship and high sequence similarity between Z. lunata and W. zibethicus. Considering the low morphological and genetic differences, we synonymize ZygocotyleStunkard, 1916 with Wardius Barker and East, 1915 in Barker 1915 and transfer Z. lunata to Wardius as Wardius lunatus (Diesing, 1836) n. comb.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Nonrandom foraging and resource distributions affect the relationships between host density, contact rates and parasite transmission"

  2024-01-24

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Dimensions: Collaborative Research: Diversity and Symbiosis: Examining the Taxonomic, Genetic, and Functional Diversity of Amphibian Skin Microbiota

  NSF · $1.2M · 2011–2017

• Collaborative Research: Community composition and disease outcomes in a multihost-parasite system

  NSF · $430k · 2009–2015

• Collarborative Research: A systems approach to understanding signaling networks in host-microbiome-parasite interactions

  NSF · $750k · 2018–2023

• DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Epidemiology meets symbiosis: modeling symbiont spread through multi-host communities

  NSF · $21k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Jeremy M. Wojdak

  Radford University

  79 shared

• Jennifer Mattei

  Sacred Heart University

  64 shared

• M. M. Humphries

  McGill University

  64 shared

• John P. Adelman

  64 shared

• Mark Beekey

  64 shared

• Martin Wikelski

  University of Konstanz

  64 shared

• Shelley A. Adamo

  Dalhousie University

  64 shared

• Rick A. Adams

  University of Northern Colorado

  64 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Zoology

  Oregon State University

  2001

• B.A., Biology

  University of Montana

  1995

Awards & honors

• 2015 Distinguished Alumna Award, Lincoln Southeast High Scho…
• 2014 VT Fralin Life Sciences Institute Innovator Award ($25,…
• 2013 VT Scholar of the Week (week of July 29, 2013)
• 2013 VT Dept. of Biological Sciences Outstanding Research Aw…
• 2012 VT College of Science Certificate of Teaching Excellenc…