The position will be part of the Computational Pathogenomics Group led by Dr. Alexander Herbig, which focuses on genome evolution of human pathogens. In a DFG funded collaborative research project with the department of Prof. Dr. Christian Kost (University of Osnabrück), we aim at exploring the eco-evolutionary causes and genomic consequences of synergistic coevolution. A major challenge in evolutionary biology is to understand how interactions between different organisms shape the process of coevolution. While this issue is well-understood for antagonistic interactions, such as between parasites and their hosts, our knowledge on synergistic coevolution is rather poorly developed. The main goal of the proposed project is to elucidate how synergistic coevolution affects the evolutionary dynamics of interacting genotypes. This will be addressed by performing extensive comparative genomics analyses on Escherichia coli strains derived from coevolution experiments, in which a cooperative mutualism evolved between two genotypes.
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[Website Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology]