Microbial Population Biology

Dear all, Judging from the oral presentations yesterday and the drafts, this will be a fabulous collection of grant proposals. Some final details for our collective benefit: A hard copy is required for the final version, due in class. The budget. This is supposed to be an interesting but not stressful exercise. Please make a [...]

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Hi guys, I’ve returned many of your drafts with comments, but to those of you still waiting, my apologies. I’ll return them tomorrow (Monday) asap. Most of you are in good shape at this stage. VC

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Dear all, As we enter the home stretch, I’ll remind you that: 1. Exam 2 is this Tuesday the 24th. Same format, slightly shorter, hence a few more points per question. Lectures 10-15 are the primary focus as well as all of the associated readings. 2. Grant proposal draft is due no later than 11:59pm [...]

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Dear class, For this week, please find an article from the literature that addresses this question in some way, uses “population thinking” and specifically addresses how/why virulence evolves.  We outlined a few “case studies” in today’s class in general terms, but the literature holds much, much more. If you can’t find a satisfactory explanation for your [...]

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Dear class, Now that you’ve posted on evolution in structured environments (last week) and evolution of prisoner’s dilemma (this week), and you’ve learned and read a lot about social interactions among Myxobacteria, it’s time to continue the conversation…with each other.  Your primary blog assignment for this week is to read as many of your classmate’s [...]

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Dear new game theorists, As I described in today’s class, please blog on one of the following: -Whether prisoner’s dilemma is ultimately a stable strategy in these viruses, perhaps referencing the second “Escape from PD” paper in the syllabus -How PD might apply in another system, perhaps related to host-parasite interactions -What game theory means [...]

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Dear all, UPDATE from 3/27: in addition to this assignment, please be prepared to critically discuss the Turner/Chao prisoner’s dilemma paper in class on 3/29. How exactly did they quantify the payoff matrix? I am looking forward to your critical interpretation of the Rainey and Travisano paper on adaptive radiation in P. fluorescens grown in [...]

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Hi all, Thanks to a few of you, I fixed the link to the Ochman paper in the syllabus. Regarding exam structure, you can expect about 15 questions, most multi-part or requiring a few sentences or a figure.  See the exam page for a bit more info, and I’ll try to edit that further asap. [...]

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Dear all, As a reminder, please nominate your best of your last several blog posts (or comments) for formal evaluation. Feel free to edit or append if you see fit. I read all of your work, but appreciate focusing on your best efforts for a grade. For this next week, in light of dissecting the [...]

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Dear all, In response to your valuable feedback today, I’ve upgraded a key feature of the site today: the syllabus. Instead of the old, messy, not-quite-up-to-date table, I’ve changed it to a public Google Doc Spreadsheet, which you can also click directly to and download for your own. All links through Spring Break should be [...]

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