Research in the EEG lab
Our projects
The role of species interactions in adaptation to stressful environments
In the role of species interactions during adaptation to new and stressful environments project, populations of C. elegans and the bacterium Escherichia coli evolve together while facing osmotic stress.
Tracking genetic, phenotypic and fitness changes provide a comprehensive understanding of evolution in this system.
Frequency-dependent selection and behavioral diversity
How can genetic diversity be maintained in natural populations?
This is a key evolutionary biology question that remains unanswered. Negative frequency-dependent selection, which is known to result in stable polymorphic equilibria, is a possible solution. In recent work with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, we showed that even in a constant laboratory environment, fitness can be frequency-dependent.
We are studying frequency-dependent selection as a mechanism for the maintenance of diversity by measuring how fitness varies in competitions between pairs of C. elegans wild isolates with different starting frequencies. For this, we obtain haplotype frequencies in population mixtures and compare fitness estimates with those resulting from models of individual nematodes, as they feed and reproduce in a Petri dish.
Host-microbe interactions and the evolution of aging
The connection between infection and aging can be critical to understanding how host-microbe interactions regulate the appearance of late-onset diseases.
The central hypothesis addressed here is that the evolution of aging-related phenotypes, as an outcome of adaptation to late-fecundity, can be primarily affected by the kind of microbes present in the gut.
Experimental evolution of C. elegans populations selected for delayed reproduction is being done in contact with different bacteria, with different degrees of pathogenicity.
Microbiome evolution in health and disease
We want to determine if artificial selection can be used to generate microbiomes with the ability to ameliorate disease conditions.
