Alternative reproductive strategies in the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the black bean aphid Aphis fabae: towards the integration of eco-evolutionary dynamics in bacteria and higher eukaryote systems.

Over the last decades it has become clear that ecological and evolutionary theories and methods and models from population genetics and population biology apply not only to higher organisms but that they can also find interesting applications in predictions economically or medically important traits in microorganisms. Interdisciplinary collaboration between microbiologists and scientist who study the evolution of behaviour in higher eukaryote organisms would therefore be very interesting, and would likely lead to new common insights. In the present project we will pursue this thesis by comparing and modelling the evolution of complex ecological and evolutionary strategies, including the occurrence of dormant persistent stages, in the human pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the higher eukaryote black bean aphid Aphis fabae.

Keywords:Bet hedging, Black bean aphid, Pseudomonas, Social evolution, Eco-evolutionay dynamics

Disciplines:Animal biology