Microbial Population Biology

I hope you left today feeling more at ease with what bacterial species are, although we’re certainly not done with the question.

A reminder that for this week, you were to post on the Hanage et al paper on Neisseria species definitions (with MLST), very broadly stating “what the bacterial species concept means to you.”

For this coming week (ie prior to next Tuesday 2/16), please choose any topic in microbiology for which the species question matters. Use your imagination, check the scientific, peer-reviewed literature (@PubMed), consider contemporary issues, etc. Why do species definitions matter in light of your favorite microbe or microbiological issue?

Now that you’ve read and understood the Whitaker et al paper (link here) on Sulfolobus biogeography, please address the following for Tuesday 2/7:
1) How do their results relate to (or complicate) the Baas-Becking hypothesis (everything is everywhere, the environment selects)?
2) What else do you wish that they (or you) would do with this project, and why? What new questions do you have?

Hi gang, check your feeds, live –>

(seriously, please let me know if your blog isn’t loading)

You should all have received an email that you have your own new blog. Start playing with it and please write a post, stating why you’re taking the course, and/or what interests you, and/or what you want to be when you grow up. If you go to http://edublogs.org you’ll find lots of help on moving into your new online home.

This is the Spring 2010 edition of Microbial Ecology and Evolution at the University of New Hampshire. This site will change rapidly over the next few days as you all receive your own blogs

For tomorrow’s lecture, you might want to give this news article a quick read:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050074

It speaks of the controversies surrounding microbial bioprospecting efforts, esp. those of Venter et al.

Another booklet that describes metagenomics and its goals and promises can be found here:

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/metagenomics_final.pdf

The complete version of the report from the National Academy of Sciences on metagenomics can be found here:

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11902&page=12

And for your final blog posts, to be evaluated:

1) Please post your creative thoughts on either microbial bioprospecting or the evolution of flu virulence

2) When all is settled, please post your abstract of your grant proposal, which should clearly spell out your specific objectives.

Hi guys,

You may wish to check out my friend Mike’s blog on why influenza virus may either evolve towards increased virulence or decreased virulence.

http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2009/04/nonoptimal_virulence_and_avian_1.php

Vc

The Airborne Metagenome in an Indoor Urban Environment

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001862

All, please take this opportunity to read this and comment upon the science, either here on this blog or there, on the article itself!  I’m sure the authors would appreciate your thoughts.

Gang,

A reminder that, by next Tuesday, you are to find an article on the evolution of virulence that addresses this question using “population thinking.”  This means not the mechanisms that underlie one strain’s methods of being virulent, but rather why various alternatives exist, or how they interplay with variation among hosts, etc.

I look forward to your diverse findings on your blogs.

VC

Hi guys, a reminder for you to comment on the article of Greg Velicer’s that you chose to read.  We’d all appreciate reading what you learned, what you think of the experiment, what more you’d like to know, any criticisms, etc.

Also, for today’s lecture on how one can find the underlying genetic mechanisms of selfishness and cooperation, here are some links on next-generation sequencing methods:

454 sequencing:
http://www.454.com/products-solutions/how-it-works/index.asp

Solexa sequencing:
http://www.illumina.com/pages.ilmn?ID=203