Uncategorized

Shota has just posted his latest work to bioRXiv! The work was done through a very fruitful collaboration with Mauro Mobilia, thanks Mauro for all your time and effort!

Shota set up a mathematical model to study how species interact in environments that fluctuate between harsh and benign conditions. His results show that it’s very difficult to predict a priori how the frequency of fluctuations will affect pairwise species interactions. He has found, though, that the strength of these interactions are good predictors of overall species diversity in microbial communities of up to 10 species. Read more here.

Our latest paper is out! Samuele did an amazing job exploring how competition between two bacterial strains growing in a biofilm affects the infection of one of them by phage. The project was originally Philippe’s side-project and he recruited Sarah, who really pushed it forward during her Master project. It would all not have been possible without a great collaboration with Frank and Greg – the two phage experts in our department! Check it out here!

To our great sadness, Flora has been the first postdoc to leave our lab after a very fruitful year. She has also left for a good reason: to take up an independent postdoctoral fellowship in Berlin! The experiments that she has started are nicely rolling now, though, thanks to her great work!

The good news is that we have two new members: Aurore has started a postdoc, and Andrea a Phd. They will both be working on the same project as a team – Aurore will be building theoretical models, while Andrea will do the matching experiments. We are very excited to have them on board!

Our latest pre-print is now available. We report on theoretical work by Shota Shibasaki, where he developed a model to explore public goods games in bioremediation of a toxic compound. The study shows that cheats that do not contribute to the public good can lead to system collapse, but by carefully controlling the system’s evolutionary dynamics, one can maximize detoxification efficiency.

We are proud to present the work of Philippe Piccardi and Björn Vessman

We show that in a harsh, toxic environment, different bacterial species can facilitate each other’s growth. If the environment is made more benign, competition between species increases. This paper includes lab experiments by Philippe and a model by Björn.

We hope you enjoy it!

Alice will be helping Flora with her soon-to-become massive experiment. And Géraldine is working on a Master project looking at species invasions into our well-studied community. Welcome to both of you!

OK, it was a bit far to drive, but totally worth it! We ate incredibly good food, took a swim in the Mediterranean and explored the town of Begur. We even managed to squeeze in some science: there were poster presentations from research done in 2029 🙂

… for her third internship in the lab! She is slowly becoming a key member. We will be enjoying her presence until June this time.

Congratulations to Andrea and Maria for completing their Master theses and doing such a great job at the defense and departmental presentations!

We will miss you, Maria!

We are excited to be expanding! Flora is a postdoc, and will be working on evolving small bacterial communities. Shota is starting his PhD on modeling microbial community stability and productivity. And for three months, we are also happy to have Avery here, visiting from Cornell University.