Related papers: Giant number fluctuations in microbial ecologies
Starting with stochastic rate equations for the fundamental interactions between microbes and their viruses, we derive a mean field theory for the population dynamics of microbe-virus systems, including the effects of lysogeny. In the…
We consider the effect of network structure on the evolution of a population. Models of this kind typically consider a population of fixed size and distribution. Here we consider eco-evolutionary dynamics where population size and…
The evolution of antimicrobial resistance generally occurs in an environment where antimicrobial concentration is variable, which has dramatic consequences on the microorganisms' fitness landscape, and thus on the evolution of resistance.…
Microbes providing public goods are widespread in nature despite running the risk of being exploited by free-riders. However, the precise ecological factors supporting cooperation are still puzzling. Following recent experiments, we…
The rate at which individual bacterial cells grow depends on the concentrations of cellular components such as ribosomes and proteins. These concentrations continuously fluctuate over time and are inherited from mother to daughter cells,…
Stochastic exponential growth is observed in a variety of contexts, including molecular autocatalysis, nuclear fission, population growth, inflation of the universe, viral social media posts, and financial markets. Yet literature on…
We are interested in populations in which the fitness of different genetic types fluctuates in time and space, driven by temporal and spatial fluctuations in the environment. For simplicity, our population is assumed to be composed of just…
Environment plays a fundamental role in the competition for resources, and hence in the evolution of populations. Here, we study a well-mixed, finite population consisting of two strains competing for the limited resources provided by an…
Stochastic phenotype switching has been suggested to play a beneficial role in microbial populations by leading to the division of labour among cells, or ensuring that at least some of the population survives an unexpected change in…
One of the most popular models for quantitatively understanding the emergence of drug resistance both in bacterial colonies and in malignant tumors was introduced long ago by Luria and Delbr\"uck. Here, individual resistant mutants emerge…
We look at the interaction of dispersal and environmental stochasticity in $n$-patch models. We are able to prove persistence and extinction results even in the setting when the dispersal rates are stochastic. As applications we look at…
We investigate the propagation of random fluctuations through biochemical networks in which the concentrations of species are large enough so that the unperturbed problem is well-described by ordinary differential equation. We characterize…
A natural phenomenon occurring in a living system is an outcome of the dynamics of the specific biological network underlying the phenomenon. The collective dynamics have both deterministic and stochastic components. The stochastic nature…
Stochastic fluctuations are central to the understanding of extinction dynamics. In the context of population models they allow for the description of the transition from the vicinity of a non-trivial fixed point of the deterministic…
Genetic drift is stochastic fluctuations of alleles frequencies in a population due to sampling effects. We consider a model of drift in an equilibrium population, with high mutation rates: few functional mutations per generation. Such…
Biodiversity and extinction are central issues in evolution. Dynamical balance among different species in ecosystems is often described by deterministic replicator equations with moderate success. However, fluctuations are inevitable,…
Single-cell experiments revealed substantial variability in generation times, growth rates but also in birth and division sizes between genetically identical cells. Understanding how these fluctuations determine the fitness of the…
Bacterial populations in natural conditions are expected to experience stochastic environmental fluctuations, and in addition, environments are affected by bacterial activities since they consume substrates and excrete various chemicals. We…
Microbial populations generally evolve in volatile environments, under conditions fluctuating between harsh and mild, e.g. as the result of sudden changes in toxin concentration or nutrient abundance. Environmental variability thus shapes…
Recently, a first step was made by the authors towards a systematic investigation of the effect of reaction-step-size noise - uncertainty in the step size of the reaction - on the dynamics of stochastic populations. This was done by…