BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Memento EPFL//
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Cooperation\, competition and warfare in bacteria: from model syst
 ems to the microbiome
DTSTART:20200407T100000
DTSTAMP:20260610T042431Z
UID:463c602a24ca8ac23ca909d3f1cd35fbc4553c502796e439274bc795
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Kevin Foster\, Department of Zoology and Department of Biochem
 istry\, University of Oxford\, UK\nSince Darwin\, evolutionary biologists 
 have been fascinated by social behaviours. Honeybee workers labour their w
 hole life without reproducing\, birds make alarm calls\, and humans are ca
 pable of extreme cooperation and conflict. Less attention was paid to the 
 microbes\, but it is now clear that they commonly live in densely interact
 ing communities that have major effects on animals and plants. Here\, micr
 obes display a dizzying array of social traits\, from enzymes released to 
 break down food and antibiotics\, through slimey secretions that protect a
 nd disperse\, to draconian molecular machines that stab\, rupture and pois
 on their competitors. But what determines whether microbes cooperate or co
 mpete with each other\, and how does this affect their hosts? To answer th
 ese questions\, we combine theory and experiments with pathogenic bacteria
  and the mammalian microbiome. This has revealed that clonemate patches na
 turally emerge in microbial communities\, which favours strong cooperation
  by kin selection. But interactions between strains and species are often 
 competitive. We find that bacteria are often at war and are even capable o
 f reciprocation\, detecting incoming attacks and responding collectively i
 n devastating counterattacks. Microbial interactions follow the same evolu
 tionary principles that were first understood through the study of animal 
 behavior. However\, one fascinating property of microbes is that their ent
 ire ecosystem can lie within another evolving organism – a host - that i
 s trying to control them and their interactions. The result appears to be 
 a complex coevolutionary dance with the host and its immune system on one 
 side\, and the whole microbiota on the other.
LOCATION:AI 1153 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==AI%201153
STATUS:CANCELLED
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR