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SUMMARY:Plenary Lecture 2: Cooperation and competition in microbial commun
 ities - Foster\, K (University of Oxford)
DTSTART:20141126T140500Z
DTEND:20141126T144000Z
UID:TALK56362@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:Since Darwin\, evolutionary biologists have been fascinated by
  cooperative behavior. Honeybee workers labor their whole life without rep
 roducing\, birds make alarm calls\, and humans often help one another. One
  major group that remains relatively unexplored\, however\, is the microbe
 s whose full spectrum of sociality only recently came to light. Microbes o
 ften live in large dense groups where one cell can strongly affect the sur
 vival and reproduction of others. But do microbes typically help or harm t
 hose around them? We study this question using a diversity of systems\, in
 cluding computer simulations\, pseudomonad bacteria and budding yeast. We 
 find that single-genotype patches naturally emerge in microbial groups\, w
 hich creates favorable conditions for cooperation within a particular geno
 type. Moreover\, some microbes actively adjust both genotypic assortment a
 nd investment into social traits in a way that promotes cooperation within
  a genotype. However\, our work on interactions be tween different microbi
 al genotypes suggests that\, here\, the evolution of competitive phenotype
 s is more likely than cooperation. This leads us to a simple model  the ge
 notypic view  that predicts microbes will evolve to help their own genotyp
 e but harm most other strains and species that they meet. We are now movin
 g to understand how our understanding of cooperation and competition in mi
 crobial communities can contribute to design principles associated with sy
 nthetic and natural systems.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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