Mathematical models of experimental microbial evolution

我的研究位于生态学和进化论的交界处，围绕进化生态学中的两个关键问题展开：什么决定了物种多样性？以及“合作行为是如何演变的？”这些问题是未来十年科学界面临的25个悬而未决的问题之一，这一点在125周年的《科学》杂志上得到了强调。《科学》杂志还强调，要提高我们对与上述问题相关的问题的理解，需要进行一项‘重大的跨学科’努力，而这正是我的奖学金所要解决的问题。该奖学金是我作为数学建模人员与一群实验微生物种群生物学家合作的结果，他们是牛津大学的A Bakling博士、悉尼大学的T Ferenci博士、奥克兰大学的P Rainey教授和伦敦帝国理工学院的C MacLean博士。我将在巴斯大学工作，在那里我将致力于为一系列项目开发数学模型，这些项目旨在探索涉及多样性和合作演变的生态机制。这些研究将通过对我的合作者的微生物进化实验进行现代数学分析和计算技术来进行。

My research lies at the interface of ecology and evolution and is focused around two key questions in evolutionary ecology: 'What determines species diversity?' and 'How did cooperative behaviour evolve?' These questions are among 25 unsolved problems facing the scientific community over the coming decade highlighted in the 125th anniversary issue of Science. The Science issue also stressed that the advancement of our understanding of the issues relating to the above questions requires a 'major interdisciplinary' effort and this is precisely what my fellowship will address. The fellowship is a collaboration between myself as a mathematical modeller and a group of experimental microbial population biologists namely Dr A Buckling, University of Oxford; Dr T Ferenci, University of Sydney; Professor P Rainey, University of Auckland; and Dr C MacLean, Imperial College London. I will be based at the University of Bath where I will work on the development of mathematical models for a range of projects designed to explore ecological mechanisms involved in the evolution of diversity and cooperation. The studies will be conducted by bringing to bare modern techniques of mathematical analysis and computation on the microbial evolutionary experiments of my collaborators.