Microbial Population Biology

Open access blog network of courses focused on the population biology of bacteria and viruses

Entries from March 31st, 2008

Evolution of cooperation, cheating, and exploitation

March 31st, 2008 · No Comments · General

Dear all, We’ll be exploring the various strategies that microbes (bacteria and viruses in particular) can evolve so as to increase their own fitness to the benefit or detriment of others in their community.  We’ll begin this week by learning about a very simple system that, it turns out, is not so simple. Paul Turner, [...]

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Pingbacks and trackbacks: the ways to link blog posts

March 25th, 2008 · No Comments · General

Hi all, In response to the voiced need to integrate blog posts and make them more of a discussion, please visit: http://www.optiniche.com/blog/117/wordpress-trackback-tutorial/ I hope this tutorial helps a bit. In particular, see: WordPress’ Built In Ping Feature WordPress takes trackback to a new level by allowing pingbacks. Pingbacks allow you to notify a weblog of [...]

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Thursday recitation paper(s) posted

March 23rd, 2008 · No Comments · General

The paper that I will be talking about on Thursday is posted in the Assignments section along with the original Rainey paper and a brief essay that he wrote.  If you have any questions before Thursday please let me know. Steffen

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Why sex?

March 13th, 2008 · No Comments · General

Today’s lecture slides are found here: 713-lecture-6-mutation-rate-and-sex.ppt Today’s recitation, which is focused on Tim Cooper’s test of one hypothesis for “Why sex?” needs to be rescheduled because of a seminar conflict.  I hope we can find a time in the week following Spring Break. Coming attractions: -More on Why Sex? -The Competitive Exclusion Principle and [...]

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Experimental evolution: lecture and coming attractions

March 4th, 2008 · No Comments · General

Hi guys, First, I just invited Richard Lenski and Michael Travisano to comment on your comments regarding their 1995 paper.  Please stay tuned to the Experts blog. Here are the slides for the experimental evolution lecture that I gave today: 713-lecture-5-experimental-evolution.ppt For Thursday 3/06, please read the paper by Giraud, Taddei et al from Science, [...]

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