graphics

In another life somewhere I think I trained as a graphic designer. But in this one I didn’t, so i’m a scientist who does mediocre graphic design on the side to make science look a bit snazzier. This is a collection of the more stand-alone graphics I’ve been creating to accompany our work. You can also follow me on twitter for sketch notes from the conferences I attend.

Showing the various ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that can explain the plasmid paradox - how plasmids can persist despite being costly to their bacterial hosts.

Explaining the factors that go towards building the bacterial pan-genome. There’s huge variation in the size of a bacteria species’ accessory genome - genes not present in all strains - and a trend for some genes but not others to be variable. Some of this is mechanistic, but some is ecological. Find out more here

I created for a blog post for Jamie Hall's awesome paper on the impact of species interactions alter evolution to a niche. His results are shown in the right hand panel - He fond that when our favourite bacteria (white) evolved alone they break… — I created for a blog post for Jamie Hall's awesome paper on the impact of species interactions alter evolution to a niche. His results are shown in the right hand panel - He fond that when our favourite bacteria (white) evolved alone they break a costly cellular pump to increase their fitness. But in the presence of another (green) bacteria they don't. In his blog post Jamie compares this with the a couple of examples of where this has been seen in 'big' animals like the finches in the Galapagos (on the left) which evolved different beaks when a competitor invaded. But unlike the decades it takes for this to been observed, in bacteria these changes can be seen (and tested) over just a few weeks
Read the summary here and the paper here

Looking at the issues of and solution for predicting whether resistance to novel antibiotics if likely to evolve. One major issue is that we make inferences from very simple assays done in the lab. Though that work can be useful there are a number o… — Looking at the issues of and solution for predicting whether resistance to novel antibiotics if likely to evolve. One major issue is that we make inferences from very simple assays done in the lab. Though that work can be useful there are a number of major reasons why these results are likely to be less than helpful in the ‘real world’..... Now out in Nature Ecology & Evolution

Cover art the journal of Bioessays - which featured our review paper on the ecological role played by temperate phages -viruses that can switch between 2 lifestyles: inserted into the genomes of their bacterial hosts (left) and as cell-killing infectious particles (right). Read the paper here