Dear All,
We would like to invite you to attend November’s Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminar (WEES) and Workshop in-person!
The Seminar and workshop will take place on Tuesday 19th November, 16:00-17:00 in Orion B5015. This will be followed by drinks at The Spot and an opportunity to meet and have dinner with the Speaker (dinner is at your own cost, but sign-up with Spyros Kanellopoulos – spyros.kanellopoulos@wur.nl).
Seminar: How to maintain a healthy microbiome? (November 19th, 16:00-17:00 in Orion, B5015)
Dr. Bram van Dijk
University lecturer, Theoretical Biology Laboratory, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Microbes populate all plants and animals, helping with nutrient acquisition, detoxification, and other useful functions. However, due to rapid microbial evolution, these interactions can quickly shift from beneficial to harmful. Understanding these ally-to-pathogen transitions is important for agriculture and human health, and therefore requires unpacking of what happens at every scale (from nano, to micro, to macro). For example, while larger organisms like plants and animals are populated by microbes, the microbes are in turn populated by a “nanobiome”: the zoo of mobile and selfish genetic elements that replicate within them. During the seminar, I will discuss models that allow us to understand what makes the nanobiome tick, and then start zooming out to include what this means for larger organisms like ourselves. It will also be discussed how phylogenies may be a helpful read-out that enables us to test whether the model captures the right dynamics, and may even serve as a predictor of disease outbreaks. With these simulations the presenter hopes to discover more of these promising leads that will enable us to better understand the world around us, and even prevent future disease outbreaks.
The associated Workshop will be from 14:00-15:30 in Orion, B4015. We are pleased to invite you to an engaging workshop on microbial models, exploring the intricate dynamics between microbes and their hosts—be they plants or animals. In this session, we will delve into the selective pressures that influence microbial behavior, determining whether microbes remain beneficial to their hosts or deviate towards harmful interactions. This workshop will mainly focus on the inherent difficulties in sustaining beneficial microbes within host organisms. Through an in-depth discussion and hands on demonstration the speaker will guide the participants on how to replicate the work from the following publication https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31548380/.
About WEES
WEES is an initiative of PhD students and postdocs at Wageningen University to organize a continuing series of stimulating seminars on contemporary topics in evolution and ecology. For this series we invite researchers from all over the world who have leading roles in their field. We aim to bring together different groups at Wageningen University using a variety of systems, but with a common interest in evolutionary and ecological questions. WEES is funded by graduate schools PE&RC, WIMEK, EPS, and WIAS.
Want to organise seminars yourself? Join WEES!
WEES is looking for new members! We aim for a broad and diverse range in topics and would like to welcome new members to help and include topics not represented yet. If you are curious, send an email to weeswageningen@gmail.com and join one of our meetings.
For more information please visit www.weeswageningen.nl and follow us on X @weeswageningen
Kind Regards,
Spyros Kanellopoulos
Ph.D. Candidate