Women in Evolutionary Biology

Session

Poster session

15 May 2024, 11:00

Lecture Hall (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology)

Description

Amy MacLeod: Studying Galapagos marine iguanas using drones, citizen science, and machine learning

Anika Du Plessis: Design of a computational model to simulate the evolution of protometabolic pathways

Anamika Nanda: Inflammation mediates the relationship between moderate to vigorous physical activity and telomere length in middle to older age adults

Aysha Chowdhury: Unveiling growth promotion and inhibition in bacterial communities

Clara Moreno-Fenoll: Polar accumulation of pyoverdin and exit from stationary phase

Emily Booms: Differences in growth ability and competition due to environmental variation in freshwater ciliates

Francisca Hervas: Evolutionary insights into cell type and organ diversification across vertebrates

Gisela T. Rodríguez-Sánchez: Short- and long-term strategies for the evolution of a specialized bacteria life cycle

Jannika Elfert: How do species save themselves? Evolutionary rescue in a host-parasite system

Kaumudi Prabhakara: Co-evolution of yeast-bacterial communities in fluctuating environments

Kerry Gendreau: Comparative cellular evolution across vertebrate brains

Lavisha Parab: Chloramphenicol reduces phage resistance evolution by suppressing bacterial cell surface mutants

Lingfeng Meng: Fisheries-induced evolution in North Atlantic

Nataša Puzović: When is gene expression noise advantageous?

Rajalekshmi Narayana Sarma: (Epi)genetic regulators of recombination rate evolution

38. (Epi)genetic regulators of recombination rate evolution

Rajalekshmi Narayana Sarma

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, one of each pair from each parent, obtained by the
process of reductional cell division called meiosis. But before we get one chromosome from
a pair from each parent, there is recombination and shuffling between each pair. This
introduces variation to ensure that we aren’t identical half copies of each parent. From one
species to another, from one...

35. Chloramphenicol reduces phage resistance evolution by suppressing bacterial cell surface mutants

Lavisha Parab

Bacteriophages infect Gram-negative bacteria by attaching to molecules present on the bacterial outer membrane, often lipopolysaccharides (LPS). Modification of the LPS can lead to phage resistance. LPS modifications also impact antibiotic susceptibility, allowing for phage-antibiotic synergism. The mechanism for these synergistic interactions is unclear. Here, we show that antibiotics affect...

33. Co-evolution of yeast-bacterial communities in fluctuating environments

Kaumudi Prabhakara

Community level evolution is an important, but understudied aspect of evolution.  Directed evolution of communities can not only increase our understanding of evolution, but also has many potential applications, such as creating communities with specific functions. However, artificial evolution of communities has had limited success. Here we are interested in the co-evolution of communities in...

34. Comparative cellular evolution across vertebrate brains

Kerry Gendreau

Following the divergence of the last common ancestor of vertebrates, vertebrate brains have undergone over 500 million years of divergence and diversification, forming unique cellular networks and substructures in response to varying environmental conditions and selective pressures. Although there is a vast and growing body of research concerning the structure and function of mammalian brains,...

25. Design of a computational model to simulate the evolution of protometabolic pathways

Anika Du Plessis

Many hypotheses attempt to explain how life started, but there is none that is unanimously accepted. Two of the most popular hypotheses is the RNA World hypothesis and the Metabolism-first hypothesis. The Metabolism-first hypothesis suggests that life originated from ordered chemical reactions that increased in complexity over time, whereas the RNA World hypothesis favours the idea of...

29. Differences in growth ability and competition due to environmental variation in freshwater ciliates

Emily Booms

Human-induced changes to the environment result in faster and less predictable variation in environmental conditions. When organisms with fast generation times, such as freshwater ciliates, are exposed to this, they can experience rapid evolution. Studies on how these evolved species would respond to sudden environmental changes are scarce. Here, we investigate how variation in environmental...

30. Evolutionary insights into cell type and organ diversification across vertebrates

Francisca Hervas

Studying the origin and evolution of tissues is a main interest in comparative biology. However, a core challenge lies in the approach employed for distinguishing homology from convergence, and innovation. In recent years, the advent and development of cell type-focused technologies have allowed the use of cell type composition comparisons between organs of different species. This strategy has...

36. Fisheries-induced evolution in North Atlantic

Lingfeng Meng

Fish populations are experiencing evolutionary changes due to intense fishing pressure, known as fisheries-induced evolution (FIE). This study aims to elucidate the extent to which observed patterns in FIE result from genetic adaptation and to identify the ecological processes influencing this evolutionary shift. By examining fish stocks in the Baltic and North Sea, the research investigates...

32. How do species save themselves? Evolutionary rescue in a host-parasite system

Jannika Elfert

Drastically changing environments can cause the extinction of populations. Adaptation to the new conditions that prevents extinction is called evolutionary rescue. The question is: How does evolution save species?

New selection pressures can cause rapid evolutionary change. This has, for example, been observed in the Pacific field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus on Hawai’i, which is under...

26. Inflammation mediates the relationship between moderate to vigorous physical activity and telomere length in middle to older age adults

Anamika Nanda

Recent work suggests a physically active hunting and gathering lifestyle may have played a role in the evolution of long human lifespans. However, the mechanisms linking physical activity (PA) with longevity remain unclear. Moderate PA is associated with longer telomere length (TL), while shorter TL has been associated with increased cellular senescence and functional decline with age. Some...

28. Polar accumulation of pyoverdin and exit from stationary phase

Clara Moreno-Fenoll

Pyoverdin is a water-soluble metal-chelator synthesized by members of the genus Pseudomonas and used for the acquisition of insoluble ferric iron. Although freely diffusible in aqueous environments, preferential dissemination of pyoverdin among adjacent cells, fine-tuning of intracellular siderophore concentrations, and fitness advantages to pyoverdin-producing versus nonproducing cells,...

31. Short- and long-term strategies for the evolution of a specialized bacteria life cycle

Gisela T. Rodríguez-Sánchez

The transition from single cells to multicellularity, as with all other evolutionary transitions, requires acquisition of Darwinian properties at the new-higher level of organization. Primordial groups arise readily via mutations that cause cells to clump. However, cell collectives, although comprised of cells that are themselves Darwinian, are themselves, non-Darwinian. Darwinian properties...

24. Studying Galapagos marine iguanas using drones, citizen science, and machine learning

Amy MacLeod

The Galapagos marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iconic & endemic endangered species of the Galapagos Archipelago, Ecuador. Despite many decades of monitoring, a full and detailed population-size estimate for this species has never been obtained. Better estimates are urgently needed to offer adequate protection for the 11 unique marine iguana subspecies against emergent threats,...

27. Unveiling growth promotion and inhibition in bacterial communities

Aysha Chowdhury

Bacteria exist in nature as part of communities where they continuously interact with each other and with their own counterparts. As a result of the interaction with other microbes, microorganisms can produce numerous secondary metabolites, some of which function as signaling molecules that promote or inhibit growth. For instance, autoinducer-2(AI-2) has been shown to promote the growth of...

37. When is gene expression noise advantageous?

Nataša Puzović

The variability of gene expression levels, also known as gene expression noise, is an evolvable trait subject to selection. While gene expression noise is detrimental in constant environments where the expression level is under stabilizing selection, it may be beneficial in changing environments when the phenotype is far from the optimum. However, expression noise propagates along the gene...