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SUMMARY:Contributed Talk: Eco-evolutionary dynamics of cooperative antimic
 robial resistance - Lluís Hernández-Navarro (University of Leeds)
DTSTART:20221011T135000Z
DTEND:20221011T141000Z
UID:TALK179336@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Microorganisms live in ecologically dynamic environments that 
 inevitably fluctuate between mild and harsh conditions. Critically\, the l
 atter gives rise to higher demographic noise and random extinctions that g
 overn evolutionary dynamics\, which in turn might shape the environmental 
 conditions through large-scale feedback loops. Although the independent co
 ntributions of environmental variability (EV) and demographic fluctuations
  (DF) have been extensively studied\, the emerging&nbsp\;`eco-evo dynamics
 '&nbsp\;resulting from the EV and DF joint interplay remains largely unkno
 wn due to its challenging complexity and interdisciplinary nature. This po
 ses an open problem that is crucial for many relevant\, real world living 
 systems.\nIn this study we focus on the eco-evo dynamics in the paramount 
 case of AntiMicrobial Resistance (AMR)\, which currently causes 7*10^5 dea
 ths every year\, and is estimated to become the cause of 10 million yearly
  deaths by 2050. AMR is typically characterized by cooperative behaviour: 
 a mutant strain generates a Public Good (PG\; e.g.\, extracellular enzyme)
  at some metabolic cost (reduced birth rate) and the PG inhibits the antim
 icrobial drug for all the population (antimicrobial-independent rates for 
 all strains). Furthermore\, PG is typically shared only when the number of
  cooperators Nc overcomes a given threshold N_c>N_th. Below N_th the Good 
 is held private\, within cooperators' intracellular medium\, and non-PG-pr
 oducers become vulnerable to antimicrobial drugs.We will thus discuss the 
 AMR eco-evo dynamics of a well-mixed\, finite microbial population of fluc
 tuating size composed of a cooperative\, PG-producer strain and a `free-ri
 der'\, defector strain. The former has a constant but lower birth rate\, w
 hile the latter has a higher birth rate that drastically reduces in the pr
 esence of antimicrobial drugs\, unless the fraction of cooperators is high
  and PG is shared. The resulting eco-evo dynamics\, arising from the direc
 t coupling between the evolutionary state (level of cooperation) and the e
 nvironmental condition (active/inhibited antimicrobial drug for defectors)
 \, and that enhances species coexistence\, will be presented. And\, finall
 y\, we will discuss the impact of a more realistic time-dependent\, fluctu
 ating environment.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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