Duhita Sant
@duhitasant.bsky.social
Postdoc at @RutgersCABM | Ecology and evolution of microbial communities | https://qevomicrolab.org
Evolutionary rescue in a phage community! New paper from former PhD student, Sam Greenrod, with brilliant colleague @craigmaclean.bsky.social : academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...
Rapid adaptation accelerates competitive suppression in a parasite community
Abstract. Environmental stress leads to changes in community composition by altering competitive hierarchies and pushing taxa towards extinction. Parasites
academic.oup.com
This has finally been published in Nature Communications! Please check it out if you are interested in population genetics, antibiotic resistance and mutation biased adaptation :) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mutation-biased adaptation is consequential even in large bacterial populations - Nature Communications
Adaptation is assumed to proceed by survival of the fittest. The study shows that mutation bias can drive adaptation via survival of the likeliest, steering bacteria along divergent paths to resistanc...
nature.com
Jake Barber@jakenbarber.bsky.social · last yr.New pre-print is finally out! This is the first project from my postdoc with Alejandro Couce, looking at how mutation-bias influences adaptation across large population sizes, and how this may have real world consequences. Really happy with how this turned out :) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Rather: small N + strong selection = beneficial mutations linked to DNA repair mutants that ⬆️ mutation supply We tried to be accurate here @catarmbruster.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-reports... Grateful that evolutionary biology is being used in microbial pathogenesis, now need more pop-gen
Adaptation and genomic erosion in fragmented Pseudomonas aeruginosa populations in the sinuses of people with cystic fibrosis
Armbruster et al. find that infection-site biogeography impacts evolution of the opportunistic pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In the sinuses of adults with cystic fibrosis, P. aeruginosa residing i...
cell.com
How do human gut microbiome species interact? Can we explain their communities and invasion patterns form environmental factors alone? PhD students Pim van Leeuwen and Pietro Gadaleta set out to test this! TLDR: Indeed, for the 10 common species we can! Paper out in mSystems: doi.org/10.1128/msys...
Environmentally mediated interactions predict community assembly and invasion success in a gut microbiota synthetic community | mSystems
The stability of the human gut microbiome is crucial for host health, with opportunistic pathogen invasions causing diseases and healthy strain replacements needed for recovery. The microbiota’s compl...
doi.org
Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology & Evolution are open! Our lab is open to hosting applicants. We link cell-level decision making to ecological outcomes and evolutionary trajectories in microbiomes. Interested or know someone who might be? Let's chat! www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...
Simons Graduate Fellowships in Ecology and Evolution
The purpose of these awards is to provide support for students entering U.S.-based Ph.D. programs with a plan to perform research in ecology and evolution. While we will consider all projects in ecolo...
simonsfoundation.org
It looks like there will be an open postdoc position in my lab soon. I'll be looking for someone with substantial wet-lab experience in microbiology / microbial ecology / evolution / physiology. If everything goes well, an ad will be coming. But if you know someone, ask them to reach out already.
We should all do our part to join Brian in ending genetics essentialism. I give a lecture at Pitt to the new PhD students entitled "There is no such thing as wild-type." I blogged about this years ago and it's part of my teaching statement. Long road, team effort✊🏻 micropopbio.org/blog/2018-07...
The root of pan-adaptationism?
There’s been a fair bit of recent discussion about why most biologists are (uncritically) adaptationists. I don’t dispute this but think it’s worth reconsidering why. Some have argued that this is bec...
micropopbio.org
Nice to see this published at @PLoS Comp Bio. Big improvements after peer review and important input from @gsherloc.bsky.social! Hopefully, this tool will be helpful for those interested in using barcodes for detecting new beneficial mutations. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Putting BASIL in a BLT: A Bayesian filtering method for estimating the fitness effects of nascent adaptive mutations
Author summary Beneficial mutations are rare but they are the ultimate drivers of evolution by natural selection. Evolutionary biologists seek to understand how many beneficial mutations an organism h...
journals.plos.org
Sergey Kryazhimskiy@skryazhi.bsky.social · last yr.A new preprint from the lab. Might be of interest to people who use barcode lineage tracking to catch de novo adaptive mutations. #popgen #evolbiol
I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.
Interested in eco-evolutionary feedbacks? Microbial experimental evolution? Pleiotropy? Filamentous phages?? Check out our latest preprint, now up on BioRxiv! biorxiv.org/content/10.6... For a quick summary, peep the thread below...🧵 (1/10)
biorxiv.org
Moving across countries as an Indian researcher hasn’t been easy, but it’s been deeply transformative. I wrote about my journey and why mobility is so important in science. Grateful to be part of this initiative by @cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social read on and check out the full series as well!
Trends in Microbiology@cp-trendsmicrobiol.bsky.social · 7mo agoScientific mobility in microbiology – 11
Come to Taipei! Registration Free, Closes Jan 20th. Generous Travel Grants Available. EMBO Workshop integrating perspectives from molecular evolution, genomics, ecology, and systems biology to highlight how interactions across organisms drive adaptation and innovation. @ishengtsai.bsky.social
Isheng Jason Tsai@ishengtsai.bsky.social · 7mo agoRegistration now open for @embo.org workshop on the evolution of biological interactions on April 24 - 27, 2026! Come join us in Taipei, Taiwan to see how interactions shaped the genomes of various organisms and meeting people from across the globe. Info: meetings.embo.org/event/26-bio...
As we close the year, the ISME Early Career Scientist Committee is glad to spotlight @duhitasant.bsky.social , Postdoctoral Researcher at Rutgers University, and her paper “Eco-evolutionary robustness of wild bacterial communities to experimental perturbation”. doi.org/10.1093/isme... (1/2)
🚨Preprint alert - this is a big one! We transfer the revolutionary power of TnSeq to bacteriophages. Our HIDEN-SEQ links the "dark matter" genes of your favorite phage to any selectable phenotype, guiding the path from fun observations to molecular mechanisms. A thread 1/8
Can we leverage bacterial competition for targeted replacement of harmful strains? Maybe! Our recent piece in @natmicrobiol.nature.com provides a theoretical framework and a set of experiments to show what it might take: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Strain displacement in microbiomes via ecological competition - Nature Microbiology
Mathematical modelling and experimental tests reveal principles that govern displacement of a resident strain by an invader in microbial communities.
nature.com
I'm advertising a PhD project on the evolution of horizontal transfer. Interested in this or other topics in evolution and species diversity, please get in touch. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
The evolutionary costs and benefits of horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotes (TB01) at University of Oxford on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - The evolutionary costs and benefits of horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotes (TB01) at University of Oxford, listed on FindAPhD.com
findaphd.com
The Royal Society's Francis Crick Medal and Lecture 2026 is awarded to Professor Kayla King for contributions to the fields of evolutionary biology and genetics of infectious disease. #RSMedals https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/francis-crick-lecture/
I am recruiting a Ph.D. student in microbial ecology, evolution, and systems biology for fall 2026. Please share! Details: qevomicrolab.org/Documents/Gr... Apply by October 1 here: forms.gle/38pPS1Ky84HB...
Congratulations to Dr. Kayla King who was awarded the 2025 Francis Crick Medal & Lecture by the Royal Society for contributions to the fields of evolutionary biology & genetics of infectious disease. @zoology.ubc.ca @ubcmicroimmuno.bsky.social @kayla-king.bsky.social @royalsociety.org bit.ly/4lGJrWB
Dr. Kayla King awarded Royal Society’s Francis Crick Medal
Evolutionary biologist Dr. Kayla King has been awarded the 2025 Francis Crick Medal and Lecture by the Royal Society of London for contributions to the fields of evolutionary biology and genetics of i...
bit.ly
Our high-precision metagenomic strain caller, PHLAME, is now published in Cell Reports!! www.cell.com/cell-reports... PHLAME works on tough sample types -- including those with coexisting strains of a species and low depth.
Intraspecies associations from strain-rich metagenome samples
Qu et al. present PHLAME, a method to analyze strain composition in metagenomic samples where many strains of the same species coexist. Using PHLAME, they show relationships between strain abundances ...
cell.com
Evan Qu@quevan.bsky.social · last yr.Excited to share my preprint describing a new microbiome analysis method, PHLAME, for detecting strain-level associations in difficult sample types. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... This work was done with my great coauthors and my amazing advisor @contaminatedsci.bsky.social
Our new paper on experimental evolution in wild tree-holes -Eco-evolutionary robustness of wild bacterial communities to experimental perturbation #ISMEJournal @duhitasant.bsky.social Tom Smith Edgar Wong Juli Cohen @kayla-king.bsky.social Tom Bell academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...
Eco-evolutionary robustness of wild bacterial communities to experimental perturbation
Abstract. Most knowledge about bacterial evolution and ecological interactions comes from laboratory studies. One difference between the wild and most labo
academic.oup.com
Eco-evolutionary robustness of wild bacterial communities to experimental perturbation #ISMEJournal by @duhitasant.bsky.social et al from @timbarra.bsky.social with Tom Bell, @kayla-king.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...
Eco-evolutionary robustness of wild bacterial communities to experimental perturbation
Abstract. Most knowledge about bacterial evolution and ecological interactions comes from laboratory studies. One difference between the wild and most labo
academic.oup.com
🚨Fresh out of press! How do wild bacterial communities respond to environmental perturbations like liming? We experimentally evolved them to find out! academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...
Eco-evolutionary robustness of wild bacterial communities to experimental perturbation
Abstract. Most knowledge about bacterial evolution and ecological interactions comes from laboratory studies. One difference between the wild and most labo
academic.oup.com
We are on the lookout for postdocs for two different projects at the intersection of ecology, evolution, and the human microbiome. See thread for more information and reach out!
I am seeking a postdoc for my group at UCLA. We work at the intersection of population genetics x microbiome (garud.eeb.ucla.edu). If interested, please message me!
Garud Lab
garud.eeb.ucla.edu
New review article with @mmdesai.bsky.social is out today! Grateful for the opportunity to contribute something we hope will serve the community well
Nature Reviews Genetics@natrevgenet.nature.com · last yr.New online! Experimental evolution in an era of molecular manipulation
Excited to get to work on GRS 2027 with @duhitasant.bsky.social!! Hit me up here or via email if you have any feedback or ideas for the next Micro Pop Biol GRS!
Laura Suttenfield@lcatherines.bsky.social · last yr.Still winding down from the Microbial Population Biology GRS/GRC!🦠 It was a great experience to be GRS co-chair with @mikeblazanin.bsky.social, and congrats to the newly-elected GRS chairs @noahhoupt.bsky.social and @duhitasant.bsky.social!💃 #GRCMicroPop #MicroSky
