Microbial Population Biology

Hi all,

To remind you, I will be absent on 3/30 but expect each of you to come to class having read the Turner and Chao, “Prisoner’s dilemma in an RNA virus” paper.  It can be found here: turner chao virus PD

As promised I have put together an introductory set of slides providing some background on the system and the experiments. In these slides, I assign each of you to groups who should focus specifically on one of six sections of this short paper. By dissecting it in sections, and then reconvening at the end to share your conclusions, I hope you’ll understand and appreciate how even simple organisms can play evolutionary games.

The introductory slides and group assignments can be found here: 713 lecture 10, sex and cheating in RNA viruses

Though I couldn’t find a legal link to the introduction to Prisoner’s Dilemma from the movie A Beautiful Mind, feel free to search YouTube for lots of related spinoffs and homemade tutorials. There’s one from Dilbert that is humorous, if not particularly informative:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED9gaAb2BEw

PS: Posted an article on winemaking microbes (both good and bad) on my micropopbio blog, which now feeds to the right –>

UPDATE (noon on 3/30): Your blog assignment this week to find and discuss an article on the evolution of sex will be late, and receive less than full credit, if posted after today.