Michael Sieber -- What does microbiota composition tell us, and how do “microbiota” meet their host?
| Dates: | 23 March 2022 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 14:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Department of Mathematics |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/chay.paterson.html |
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(via Zoom)
Join us for this seminar by Michael Sieber (Max Planck Evolutionary Biology, Germany) as part of the North West Seminar Series in Mathematical Biology and Data Sciences. Details of the full series can be found here https://www.cms.livjm.ac.uk/APMSeminar/
The talk will be hosted via zoom, please contact carl.whitfield@manchester.ac.uk or I.Siekmann@ljmu.ac.uk for the zoom link, or sign up to the mailing list.
Abstract: Host-associated microbial communities – or microbiota – can have fundamental roles in host functioning and there is great interest in understanding host-microbe interactions. In this talk I will present two different modelling approaches that try to address two fundamental questions in microbiota ecology and evolution. First we can ask if there is actually selection for specific microbiota compositions or whether most of the observed variation in composition is due to chance. Here, neutral models can help to disentangle the relative contributions of random processes and more deterministic selective processes. I will present results, and limitations, from the application of a neutral model to microbiota data from a range of different host species and their respective environments. Then I will take a step back and ask how specific host-microbe interactions can arise in the first place. If the microbes provide a clear benefit for the host this seems clear, but for initially unrelated microbes and hosts this is probably not the typical case. I will show how certain microbes living on a patchy landscape can still get enriched in hosts dispersing between the patches, even if there is no specific benefit coming from the interaction.
To subscribe to the mailing list for this event series, please send an e-mail with the phrase “subscribe math-lifesci-seminar” in the message body to listserv@listserv.manchester.ac.uk
Speaker
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/chay.paterson.html
Role: Honorary Postdoctoral Associate
Organisation: University of Manchester
Travel and Contact Information
