Special seminar - Bram van Dijk: The ecology and evolution of Virtual Microbes
- Datum: 13.11.2019
- Uhrzeit: 14:00 - 15:00
- Vortragende(r): Bram van Dijk von der Utrecht University, Niederlande
- Ort: MPI Plön
- Raum: Hörsaal
- Gastgeber: Paul Rainey
Abstract (auf Englisch):
Even on the scale of single grains of soil,
microbial ecosystems are
incredibly diverse. In my talk I will focus on the factors that
help or hinder
ecological interactions from evolving. Although we have an
increasing
understanding of the components that make up a microbial
ecosystem (cells,
genes, metabolites, etc.), we have not yet developed our
intuition on
what this system looks like when the wheels are actually
turning. We have
developed a multi-level simulation framework called "Virtual
Microbes" with which we can shine some light on these dynamics.
I will
present our work where we have mimicked Richard Lenski's
long-term evolution
experiment in silico. We find that different
"pre-evolved"
Virtual Microbe wild types (WTs) adapt to anticipate the
regularity of the
serial transfer protocol by accurately fitting their growth
dynamics to the 24
cycle. This anticipation is achieved in a variety of
mechanistically different
ways, one of which is the formation of a microbial collective,
where two
strains have adapted on their own temporal niche. While some WTs
repeatedly
evolve the same solution to anticipate the serial transfer
protocol, others
find a broad range of different solutions. In a follow-up study,
we have found
that these historical contingencies are also present when
evolving Virtual
Microbes on a single resource without a daily resource cycle,
and that small
differences in the evolutionary history of microbes can blow up
to shape the
outcome of the entire ecosystem. In short, historical
contingencies in the
predictability of evolution, and what kind of ecology evolves,
is itself a
historical contingency.