Evolutionary Rescue - bridging the gap between theory and experiments

Session

Poster

1 Jul 2025, 11:30

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology

51. Dominance of resistance mutations in diploid and polyploid organsims

Alica Merkens

01/07/2025, 11:30

The evolution of resistance is a major challenge in medicine and agriculture. Organisms can evolve resistance through a variety of mechanisms, including target modification, metabolic changes, and efflux systems. In diploid or polyploid organsims, the dominance of resistance mutations has a strong influence on the dynamics of resistance evolution. The dominance of an allele can differ across...

37. Enhanced metabolic entanglement emerges during the evolution of an interkingdom microbial community

Jan-Luca Ariens

01/07/2025, 11:30

While different stages of mutualism can be observed in natural communities, the dynamics and mechanisms underlying the gradual erosion of independence of the initially autonomous organisms are not yet fully understood. In this study, by conducting the laboratory evolution on an engineered microbial community, we reproduce and molecularly track the stepwise progression towards enhanced partner...

40. Evolution of Antibiotic Tolerance

Jonas Guenzl

01/07/2025, 11:30

It became clear shortly after the discovery of the first antibiotics that bacteria are able to survive and evade antibiotic treatment. Ever since, understanding the emergence of antimicrobial resistance is of great interest and a large number of studies have addressed the mechanisms of bacterial evolution in the presence of antibiotics. However, such studies often focus exclusively on...

31. Evolutionary Rescue in the Fields: Probability and Waiting Time for Herbicide Resistance

Dana Lauenroth

01/07/2025, 11:30

The recurrent exposure to herbicides in agricultural landscapes forces weeds to adapt in a race against extinction. What role newly arising mutations and pre-existing variation play in this evolution of herbicide resistance is critical for developing management strategies. In this talk, I will present a multitype Galton-Watson process model of rapid adaptation in response to strong...

48. Genetic Adaptation to Environmental Change in Experimental Populations

Salvatore Bannò

01/07/2025, 11:30

Theoretical models suggest that when the environment fluctuates slowly over hundreds of generations, populations primarily adapt to the environmental optimum through genetic changes rather than relying on phenotypic plasticity. Experimental evolution shows that gradual environmental change promotes the accumulation of smaller-effect mutations, leading to greater fitness than adapting to a...

30. Microbiome-Mediated Evolutionary Rescue

Bob Week

01/07/2025, 11:30

Host-associated microbiomes are increasingly recognized as key players in adaptive evolution, shaping host responses to environmental stressors and exhibiting varying degrees of heritability across generations. Given their potential to influence host fitness, microbiomes may play a crucial role in facilitating evolutionary rescue. However, the conditions under which microbiomes promote...

29. Modeling the early dynamics of urinary tract infections and resistance evolution

Amanda de Azevedo-Lopes

01/07/2025, 11:30

Treatment of urinary tract infections (UTIs) and the prevention of their recurrence is a pressing global health problem. In a UTI, pathogenic bacteria not only reside in the bladder lumen but also attach to and invade the bladder tissue. Planktonic, attached, and intracellular bacteria face different selection pressures from physiological processes such as micturition, immune response, and...

46. Stochastic Evolution of Resistance in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Qianci Yang

01/07/2025, 11:30

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow produces too many lymphocytes without further differentiation into mature blood cells. The primary treatment for most ALL cases is chemotherapy; however, after the intense treatment phase, relapse is observed in some patients. Early-stage relapses might be due to some remaining leukemia cells not being detectable...

43. Byte and Thrive: Simulating Predator-Prey Dynamics in Changing Environments

Nicolas Armeni

02/07/2025, 11:30

Rapid environmental change exposes species to novel conditions, often threatening their long-term survival. Although factors such as genetic variability and mutation rates are well-established drivers of adaptation, the role of predation remains comparatively underexplored. Previous studies suggest that predators can paradoxically facilitate prey adaptation and thereby promoting prey...

47. Change in prey genotype frequency rescues predator from extinction

Ruben Hermann

02/07/2025, 11:30

Indirect evolutionary rescue (IER) is a mechanism where a non-evolving species is saved from extinction in an otherwise lethal environment by evolution in an interacting species. This process has been described in a predator–prey model, where extinction of the predator is prevented by a shift in the frequency of defended towards undefended prey when reduced predator densities lower selection...

49. EcoRaMa: The potential for evolutionary rescue at species range margins

Shengman Lyu

02/07/2025, 11:30

Almost all organisms have geographical distributions that are limited by range margins. But why? What prevents the evolution of local adaptation in populations at a range margin from allowing the species to expand its range into new territory? One idea is that marginal populations are small and genetically depauperate, with limited potential for local adaptation. Gene flow into such...

26. Evolution of a mutant on all four-demed metapopulations

Akanksha Singh

02/07/2025, 11:30

Multiple populations that are connected by migration create a metapopulation. This study looks at how the fixation probability of a mutant is affected by different migration patterns in various metapopulation structures composed of 4 demes, each having identical carrying capacities. We look at all possible 4-node network structures, where each node is a deme and each link represents migration....

38. Evolutionary Rescue in the Pacific Field Cricket?

Jannika Elfert

02/07/2025, 11:30

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 harsh predation pressure from the parasitoid fly Ormia ochracea. The fly locates the male crickets by their mating calls and deposits its larvae on the cricket which gets eventually killed. Within less than 20...

27. Evolutionary rescue of niche constructors from habitat exploitation

Alexander Longcamp

02/07/2025, 11:30

Niche construction, the process by which an organism increases its fitness by modifying its environment, can promote population persistence by allowing niche constructors to restore the density of reproductively suitable habitats. However, niche-constructing populations can be vulnerable to exploitation by non-niche-constructing "cheaters" that benefit from the constructed habitats without...

33. Genetic rescue: Outbred or Inbred, who is the better rescuer?

George West

02/07/2025, 11:30

Anthropogenic changes mean that many populations are becoming increasingly small and isolated. The loss of fitness due to inbreeding, aka inbreeding depression, is a major concern for these populations, potentially contributing to their extinction. Genetic diversity can be introduced into the inbred population via the translocation of individuals (Genetic rescue), reducing inbreeding...

32. Increased fluctuation in a butterfly metapopulation leads to diploid males and decline of a hyperparasitoid

Etsuko Nonaka

02/07/2025, 11:30

Climate change can increase spatial synchrony of population dynamics, leading to large-scale fluctuation that destabilizes communities. High trophic level species such as parasitoids are disproportionally affected because they depend on unstable resources. Most parasitoid wasps have complementary sex determination, producing sterile males when inbred, which can theoretically lead to population...

34. Outbreeding management offers the promise of genetic rescue for an endangered lizard

Guannan Wen

02/07/2025, 11:30

Inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity increase the extinction risk of small isolated populations. Genetic rescue by augmenting gene flow is a powerful means for the restoration of lost genetic variation. In this study, we used multigenerational pedigrees and neutral genetic markers to assess the consequences of outbreeding management in the Chinese and Vietnamese populations of the...