Exploring the eco-evolutionary dynamics of salt-induced cell clustering in bacteria

The project aims to explore the phenomenon of salt-induced cell clustering (SICC) in bacteria, a form of multicellularity that could have significant implications for understanding microbial ecology and the evolution of multicellularity.

The project will investigate the prevalence of SICC across diverse bacterial species, its impact on synthetic microbial communities and the genetic basis for SICC. We will investigate if clustering confers adaptive advantages, including resistance to antibiotics.

The research will also examine the degree of convergent evolution for different species evolving multicellularity through genetic assimilation of SICC, where mutations fix the multicellular phenotype to become independent of salt.

The experimental work will include high-throughput experimental evolution, automated microbial live-cell imaging, confocal microscopy, and genomics, performed by PhD student in a collaborative interdisciplinary environment.

The project will provide insights into how bacteria organize themselves spatially into communities, which is a key factor in microbiome function.

It offers an extendable model system for studying the evolution of multicellularity in diverse bacterial species and the role of phenotypic plasticity in the evolution of new phenotypes.

Given the importance of salinity as the major environmental determinant of microbial community composition, this research has potential applications across environmental sciences, medicine, and biotechnology.