Related papers: Population genetics in microchannels
Most organisms grow in space, whether they are viruses spreading within a host tissue or invasive species colonizing a new continent. Evolution typically selects for higher expansion rates during spatial growth, but it has been suggested…
Organisms often grow, migrate and compete in liquid environments, as well as on solid surfaces. However, relatively little is known about what happens when competing species are mixed and compressed by fluid turbulence. In these lectures we…
The accumulation of adaptive mutations is essential for survival in novel environments. However, in clonal populations with a high mutational supply, the power of natural selection is expected to be limited. This is due to clonal…
Laboratory experiments with bacterial colonies, under well-controlled conditions often lead to evolutionary diversification, where at least two ecotypes emerge from an initially monomorphic population. Empirical evidence suggests that such…
The unwelcome evolution of malignancy during cancer progression emerges through a selection process in a complex heterogeneous population structure. In the present work, we investigate evolutionary dynamics in a phenotypically heterogeneous…
We introduce and analyse an individual-based evolutionary model, in which a population of genetically diverse organisms compete with each other for limited resources. Through theoretical analysis and stochastic simulations, we show that the…
Conjugation is the primary mechanism of horizontal gene transfer that spreads antibiotic resistance among bacteria. Although conjugation normally occurs in surface-associated growth (e.g., biofilms), it has been traditionally studied in…
How are granular details of stochastic growth and division of individual cells reflected in smooth deterministic growth of population numbers? We provide an integrated, multiscale perspective of microbial growth dynamics by formulating a…
Bacteria evolve in volatile environments and complex spatial structures. Migration, fluctuations and environmental variability therefore have a significant impact on the evolution of microbial populations. Here, we consider a class of…
Microbial populations in the natural environment are likely to experience growth conditions very different from those of a typical laboratory xperiment. In particular, removal rates of biomass and substrate are unlikely to be balanced under…
We study the interplay of population growth and evolutionary dynamics using a stochastic model based on birth and death events. In contrast to the common assumption of an independent population size, evolution can be strongly affected by…
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…
Microorganisms, such as E.Coli, are known to display upstream behavior and respond rheotactically to shear flows. In particular, E.Coli suspensions have been shown to display strong sensitivity to spatial constrictions, leading to an…
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…
We have simulated the evolution of age structured populations whose individuals represented by their diploid genomes were distributed on a square lattice. The environmental conditions on the whole territory changed simultaneously in the…
In species reproducing both sexually and asexually clones are often more common in recently established populations. Earlier studies have suggested that this pattern arises from natural selection favouring asexual recruitment in young…
Natural microbial populations often have complex spatial structures. This can impact their evolution, in particular the ability of mutants to take over. While mutant fixation probabilities are known to be unaffected by sufficiently…
This paper presents an interesting experimental example of voter-model statistics in biology. In recent work on mouse tail-skin, where proliferating cells are confined to a two-dimensional layer, we showed that cells proliferate and…
Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. It is well known that population structure can affect evolutionary dynamics. Traditionally, natural selection is studied between mutants that differ in reproductive rate, but are…
Elucidating the architecture and dynamics of large scale genetic regulatory networks of cells is an important goal in systems biology. We study the system level dynamical properties of the genetic network of Escherichia coli that regulates…