How microbes build their environments through evolutionary feedback

适应性景观是一个关键的进化概念，将基因或性状与生殖适应性联系起来。然而，这已经受到了生物的挑战，它们通过改变环境来扭曲景观。该项目旨在开发一种新的数学模型，通过扩展景观概念来适应生态位建设。这一框架将应用于改变其环境的微生物，例如，通过激发和破坏宿主免疫系统，以及通过诱导宿主的行为改变。这些过程改变了自然选择对微生物的作用，从而导致了重要的进化反馈。该模型将用于检查抗生素耐药性，病原体毒性以及微生物群如何发展。

The fitness landscape, a key evolutionary concept, relates genes or traits to reproductive fitness. However, this has been challenged by organisms that distort the landscape by changing their environments. This project aims to develop a new mathematical model that restores the landscape concept by extending it to accommodate niche construction. This framework will be applied to microorganisms that alter their environments, for example, by provoking and subverting the host immune system, and by inducing behavioural change in hosts. These processes alter how natural selection operates on microbes and thus lead to important evolutionary feedback. The model will be used to examine antibiotic resistance, pathogen virulence and how microbiomes develop.