Current Methods in Experimental Evolution with Microbes

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Mato Lagator

University of Manchester, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

Dr. Mato Lagator is an independent research fellow (Assistant Professor level) at the University of Manchester. He received his BA in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University and completed his PhD from the University of Warwick. Under the supervision of Dr. Paul Neve and Dr. Nick Colegrave, he used experimental evolution to study the effects of different pesticide application strategies on resistance evolution using a single-cell alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, as a model system. He spent 5 years as a postdoc at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) in Austria, where he worked in the groups of Prof. Calin Guet and Dr. Jonathan Bollback to study the relationship between molecular mechanisms and microbial evolution.

Danna Gifford

The University of Manchester

Dr Danna Gifford is an independent research fellow based at The University of Manchester. Dr Gifford’s research focuses on uncovering the fundamental rules of evolution and applying these rules to predict the response of organisms to new environments. Her current research aims to develop evolution-guided approaches for preventing antimicrobial resistance (AMR). She leads a multidisciplinary team working at the interface of evolutionary microbiology, genomics and mathematical modelling, which she established during her recently completed UKRI Innovation/Rutherford Fund Fellowship in Manchester. She also has a track record in developing and testing fundamental evolutionary theory using real-time experimental evolution and in silico simulations, which was gained through positions held at the University of Oxford (postdoc and DPhil), Wageningen University (visiting researcher) and the University of Ottawa (Honors BSc and MSc).

Collection Overview

Since its inception, the study of evolution has predominantly been a retrospective effort – observing the organismal shapes, forms and genomes today to infer their evolutionary past. Microbes, primarily due to their short generation time and ease of laboratory manipulation, offer an alternative – to study evolution in action, as it happens. Since the late 80s, when Richard Lenski and colleagues conducted the first long-term evolution experiments with Escherichia coli, the field of Experimental Evolution took off and has been used to address a range of key questions in evolution and ecology. Today, experimental evolution is a technique employed by research laboratories across the world.

In this Methods Collection, we will cover the most common and important experimental approaches to using microbes in the study of evolution, including studies that rely on high-throughput techniques; mutation accumulation experiments; lineage tracking; ‘replay’ experiments; comparative evolution of different genotypes; evolution of engineered strains; large volumes; and diversification experiments. We aim for this collection not only to cover a range of techniques, but also to demonstrate the diversity of questions that can be addressed within the field. This will serve to strengthen this research area by standardizing approaches and addressing common pitfalls that hinder the advancement and interpretation of the fundamental and applied questions these techniques are used to address.