Assistant Professor
Email: skutos@loyola.edu
Lab website: GNOME Lab
Office
Dorothy Day 051
Department of Biology
Loyola University Maryland
4501 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210-2699
Biography
Microbiomes are increasingly found to be critical to the health and wellness of humans, animals, and ecosystems. These organisms (bacteria, fungi, archaea, virus, and protist) live everywhere and on everything. While some of these organisms can be pathogenic and cause harm - many of these microbial species can be beneficial. They can protect humans from other pathogens, they can aid human and animal digestion, they can help plants grow and thrive, and they are key to the ecosystem processes that allows Earth to function.
For my research, I link microbiology, molecular genomics, bioinformatics, and ecological theory to investigate the factors that influence microbiome diversity, community structure, and functions across various systems.
Please check out my lab website for more information
Publications
- Muletz-Wolz C, Kutos S, Jiménez R, Osborne O, Ellison A, Cleland T, Gratwicke B. Novel antimicrobial peptides and peptide-microbiome crosstalk in Appalachian salamander skin (In Review)
- Kutos S, Bennett RE, Santos D, Botero-Delgadillo E, Muletz-Wolz CR. 2025. Soil and cherry bacterial communities predict flavor on coffee farms. Scientific Reports, 15(1), p.19387.
- Naghshineh N, Barnes EM, Kutos S, Lewis JD. Reorganization of bacterial community network structure in the eastern redback salamander (Plethodon cinereus) and its soil reservoir across a gradient of land use. FEMS Microbiology Ecology-24-11-0266.R1
- Kutos S, Bennett R, Rao M, Fleischer R, Rice R, Muletz Wolz C. 2024. Farm management and shade tree species influence coffee soil microbiomes in Central and South America. Applied Soil Ecology, 202, 105571. org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2024.105571.
- Bethany J, Kutos S, Oliver K, Stricker E. 2024. Spring manure- and biosolid compost additions affect soil, vegetation, and microbial characteristic in dry rangelands. Rangeland Ecology and Management, 94:78-82. org/10.1016/j.rama.2024.01.011
- Kutos S, Stricker E, Cooper A, Ryals R, Creque J, Machmuller M, Kroegar M, Silver WL. 2023. Compost amendment to enhance carbon sequestration in rangelands. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 78(2):163-77. doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2023.00072.
- Kutos S, Barnes EM, Lewis JD. 2022. Soil fungal communities vary more with soil characteristics than tree diversity at a local scale. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, cjfr-2021-0360. org/10.1139/cjfr-2021-0360.
- Kutos S, Barnes EM, Bhutada A, Lewis JD. 2022. Preferential associations of soil fungal taxa under mixed compositions of eastern American tree species. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 98(6)fiac056. doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiac056.
- Kutos S*, Barnes EM*, Naghshineh N, Mesko M, You Q, Lewis JD. 2021. Assembly of the amphibian microbiome is influenced by the effects of land‐use change on environmental reservoirs. Environmental Microbiology, 23(8) 4595-4611. org/10.1111/1462-2920.15653. *Co-first
Area of Specialization
- Community and Microbial Ecology