相关论文: Paradoxes in Leaky Microbial Trade
Social interaction between microbes can be described at many levels of details, ranging from the biochemistry of cell-cell interactions to the ecological dynamics of populations. Choosing the best level to model microbial communities…
We study the emergence of cell differentiation under the assumption of the existence of a given number of tradeoffs between genes encoding different functions. In the model the viability of colonies is determined by the capability of their…
Microbes constantly interact with their environment by depleting and transforming food sources. Theoretical studies have mainly focused on Lotka-Volterra models, which do not account for food source dynamics. In contrast, consumer-resource…
Local perturbations of individual metabolic reactions may result in different levels of lethality, depending on their roles in metabolism and the size of subsequent cascades induced by their failure. Moreover, essentiality of individual…
A packed community of exponentially proliferating microbes will spread in size exponentially. However, due to nutrient depletion, mechanical constraints, or other limitations, exponential proliferation is not indefinite, and the spreading…
Experimental studies of microbial communities routinely reveal that they have multiple stable states. While each of these states is generally resilient, certain perturbations such as antibiotics, probiotics and diet shifts, result in…
Bacteria are highly adaptive microorganisms that thrive in a wide range of growth conditions via changes in cell morphologies and macromolecular composition. How bacterial morphologies are regulated in diverse environmental conditions is a…
Standard macroeconomic models assume that households are rational in the sense that they are perfect utility maximizers, and explain economic dynamics in terms of shocks that drive the economy away from the stead-state. Here we build on a…
Phase variation, or stochastic switching between alternative states of gene expression, is common among microbes, and may be important in coping with changing environments. We use a theoretical model to assess whether such switching is a…
The evolution of various competing cell types in tissues, and the resulting persistent tissue population, is studied numerically and analytically in a particle-based model of active tissues. Mutations change the properties of cells in…
Statistical physics can describe the behavior of microbial populations consisting of many heterogeneous individuals. A direct consequence is the existence of phase transitions, where the behavior of a population changes discontinuously upon…
The evolution of structure in biology is driven by accretion and change. Accretion brings together disparate parts to form bigger wholes. Change provides opportunities for growth and innovation. Here we review patterns and processes that…
The goal of this article is to contribute towards the conceptual and quantitative understanding of the evolutionary benefits for (microbial) populations to maintain a seed bank (consisting of dormant individuals) when facing fluctuating…
Within a mathematical model, the process of interaction of the metabolic processes such as glycolysis and gluconeogenesis is studied. As a result of the running of two opposite processes in a cell, the conditions for their interaction and…
Development combines three basic processes asymmetric --- cell division, signaling and gene regulation --- in a multitude of ways to create an overwhelming diversity of multicellular life-forms. Here, we attempt to chart this diversity…
Establishing a quantitative connection between the population growth rate and the generation times of single cells is a prerequisite for understanding evolutionary dynamics of microbes. However, existing theories fail to account for the…
Microorganisms live in environments that inevitably fluctuate between mild and harsh conditions. As harsh conditions may cause extinctions, the rate at which fluctuations occur can shape microbial communities and their diversity, but we…
Metabolic networks consist of linked functional components, or modules. The mechanism underlying metabolic network modularity is of great interest not only to researchers of basic science but also to those in fields of engineering. Previous…
Epidemic models study the spread of an undesired agent through a population, be it infectious diseases through a country, misinformation in online social media, or pests infesting a region. In combating these epidemics, we rely neither on…
We investigate the selective forces that promote the emergence of modularity in nature. We demonstrate the spontaneous emergence of modularity in a population of individuals that evolve in a changing environment. We show that the level of…