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DMS-EPSRC Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of Fluctuating Populations

DMS-EPSRC 种群波动的生态进化动力学

基本信息

批准号：
EP/V014439/1
负责人：
Mauro Mobilia
金额：
$ 57.43万
依托单位：
University of Leeds
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2021 至无数据
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FV014439%2F1
关键词：
DMS EPSRC Eco Evolutionary Dynamics

项目摘要

Understanding the origin of species diversity and the evolution of cooperation is a major scientific riddle that resonates with numerous societal concerns, like the rise of antimicrobial resistance or the loss of biodiversity, and is even relevant to epidemiology. Population dynamics traditionally ignores fluctuations and considers static and homogeneous environments. However, fluctuations arising from randomly occurring birth / death events (demographic noise) and the change of environmental conditions (environmental variability), together with the spatial dispersal of species, play a crucial role in understanding how the size and composition of a population jointly evolve in time, i.e. its eco-evolutionary dynamics. Here, we focus on the ubiquitous situation where the eco-evolutionary dynamics of fluctuating populations is shaped by the coupling of demographic noise and environmental variability. The interdependence of environmental variability and demographic noise is poorly understood but of great importance in microbial communities, which are often subject to sudden and extreme environmental changes. In particular, modelling population of varying size and composition subject to changing external factors is crucial to understand the evolution of microbial antibiotic resistance. In fact, pharmacodynamics largely focuses on the deterministic description of large well-mixed bacterial populations, but fails to account crucial stochastic effects arising in small communities. When antibiotics reduce a large population to a very small one but fail to eradicate it, surviving cells may replicate and restore infections, and these survivors are likely to develop antibiotic resistance. Owing to the small population size, the details of the outcome are subject to large fluctuations.This important example clearly illustrates the need for theoretical advances to shed light on extinction and resistance scenarios in fluctuating environments.This ambitious proposal has branched out from a series of previous smaller collaborative projects, see e.g. References [1,2,12], visits and a workshop (co-funded by the Leeds School of Mathematics and the EPSRC Network Plus). It is a timely opportunity to carry out a cutting-edge research programme, containing elements of adventure and whose central goal is to develop a suite of theoretical tools that will allow us to describe biologically relevant evolutionary models, and to make testable predictions in laboratory-controlled experiments. For this joint effort, crucially building on the team's unique complementary expertise, we will adopt a multidisciplinary approach combining various mathematical tools and will consider models of an increasing level of complexity. Many of the features of our theoretical models, such as switching environments, time-varying population sizes, public good production, etc. can be reproduced in laboratory experiments. This opens the door to a host of exciting possibilities to address theoretical questions of direct biological relevance, and to experimentally test various predictions of our theoretical models. We will explore these opportunities with our experimental biologist project partner (see Dr Jose Jimenez's letter of support).

了解物种多样性的起源和合作的演变是一个重大的科学之谜，与许多社会问题产生共鸣，如抗生素耐药性的上升或生物多样性的丧失，甚至与流行病学有关。种群动力学传统上忽略波动，考虑静态和同质环境。然而，由随机发生的出生/死亡事件（人口统计噪音）和环境条件的变化（环境变异性）引起的波动，以及物种的空间扩散，在理解种群的规模和组成如何随时间共同演变，即其生态进化动力学方面发挥着至关重要的作用。在这里，我们专注于无处不在的情况下，波动的人口的生态进化动力学是由人口噪音和环境变化的耦合。环境变异性和人口噪声的相互依赖性知之甚少，但在微生物群落中非常重要，它们经常受到突然和极端的环境变化的影响。特别是，模拟不同规模和组成的人口受到不断变化的外部因素是至关重要的了解微生物抗生素耐药性的演变。事实上，药效学主要集中在确定性的描述大型充分混合的细菌种群，但未能考虑关键的随机效应在小社区。当抗生素将一个大的种群减少到一个非常小的种群，但未能根除它时，存活的细胞可能会复制并恢复感染，这些幸存者可能会产生抗生素耐药性。由于种群规模较小，结果的细节受到较大波动的影响。这个重要的例子清楚地说明了理论进步的必要性，以阐明波动环境中的灭绝和抗性情景。这个雄心勃勃的提议是从以前一系列较小的合作项目中分支出来的，参见例如参考文献[1，2，12]，访问和一个讲习班（由利兹数学学院和EPSRC Network Plus共同资助）。这是一个及时的机会来进行一个尖端的研究计划，包含冒险的元素，其中心目标是开发一套理论工具，使我们能够描述生物相关的进化模型，并在实验室控制的实验中进行可检验的预测。对于这项共同努力，至关重要的是建立在团队独特的互补专业知识，我们将采用多学科的方法，结合各种数学工具，并将考虑越来越复杂的模型。我们的理论模型的许多功能，如切换环境，随时间变化的人口规模，公共产品生产等，可以在实验室实验中重现。这为解决与生物学直接相关的理论问题，并通过实验测试我们的理论模型的各种预测打开了一扇令人兴奋的大门。我们将与我们的实验生物学家项目合作伙伴一起探索这些机会（见Jose Jimenez博士的支持信）。