MEB noon seminar

Feb 22, 2022

Zoom:  https://usc.zoom.us/j/97282532843?pwd=TlJHUG1WSDBzZDFvWmVtakk1M0RaQT09

Dr. Julia Schwartzman

Post-Doctoral Associate, Cordero Laboratory

Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How ecological function emerges from cellular behavior in marine bacteria

'Bacterial collectives perform crucial ecological functions for earth's oceans, ranging from catalyzing the global cycling of nutrients to guiding the individual development of complex multicellular organisms. In this talk, I'll present three vignettes drawn from my work on host-microbe interactions and marine particle decomposition in which ecological functions can be understood as emerging from collective cellular behavior. This work, which combines measurements of cellular physiology and quantitative light microscopy, reveals how two key aspects of cellular behavior- plasticity and heterogeneity- underly the resilience of emergent ecological functions in marine bacteria. Looking forward, applying this experimental framework will forge a quantitative link between genetic variation and collective cellular behavior, providing a lens for understanding the evolution of cellular behavior in our changing oceans.'