Seminar: María Rebolleda-Gomez, June 5th 1PM EDT

"Innovations and constraints: evolution of metabolic rules and their ecological relevance"

Dr. María Rebolleda-Gómez

Assistant Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, UC Irvine

June 5th, 2023, 1 pm ET

http://go.wisc.edu/453g11

The history of life on earth is marked by major innovations, traits that often change what is possible. However, these transformative events often come with trade-offs and constraints, shaping the available strategies and increasing the predictability of short-term ecological and evolutionary responses. To illustrate this argument, in this talk, I will briefly discuss how the evolution of multicellularity both opened important alternatives and, at the same time, constrained immediate ecological responses. Finally, I will argue that innovations and key transitions in metabolic architecture create important constraints in the short term; a better understanding of these metabolic rules can better allow us to understand and predict present microbial communities.