Population and evolutionary dynamics during microbial range expansions

Spatial expansions occur across multiple scales, from the expanding range of a species to the growth of tumors and microbial biofilms. In ecology, range expansions are becoming more frequent due to environmental changes and rare long distance dispersal, often facilitated by anthropogenic activities. Simple models in theoretical ecology explain many emergent properties of range expansions, such as a constant expansion velocity, in terms of organism-level properties such as growth and dispersal rates. Moreover, the evolution and potentially even the survival of an expanding population depends on its genetic diversity, which is also predicted to reduce drastically during range expansions. However, testing these quantitative predictions in natural populations is difficult because of large environmental variability and the inability of replicating historical processes.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Gandhi, Saurabh Rajendra.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jeff Gore.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123351

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123351