Anna Dewar

Out now in @plosbiology.org : our big joint effort on the role of #CRISPR in plasmid competition. Read on for a really fun (I’m biased ok) analysis of how a defence system has new selective pressures when it’s mobile
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... 1/6

🚨 New preprint 🚨

How promiscuous really are conjugative plasmids, and what does that mean for plasmid co-occurrence?

A pleasure to collaborate with @craigmaclean.bsky.social on the first paper of my fellowship!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Comparative analysis across 5,678 insect species shows that, when you control for phylogenetic bias, eusociality has not evolved at a faster rate in haplodiploid species. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We understand a great deal about how and why cooperation evolves, but what about its long-term consequences?

Great to see our new review on this out now in @asn-amnat.bsky.social!

GLADE takes a fully phylogenetic approach.

It uses orthogroups, gene trees, and the species tree to infer gains, losses, and duplications, and to map each event onto the phylogeny.

(4/10)

Calling all OrthoFinder users!

We’ve just released GLADE, a tool to infer gene gains, losses, duplications, and ancestral genomes across a phylogeny.

GLADE runs directly on OrthoFinder results.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
github.com/lauriebelch/...

(1/10)

New preprint! Symbionts provide critical functions—but how do they impact host phenotypes in nature? We show a horizontally transferred plasmid in a heritable symbiont drives divergence in defensive traits across insect populations, revealing how mobile DNA rapidly shapes pathogen resistance. 👇

Community conservatism is widespread across microbial phyla and environments - Nature Ecology & Evolution This study reveals that closely related microorganisms tend to inhabit similar communities across all major environments and phyla. The authors term this phenomenon ‘community conservatism’, extending...

In case you missed our recent study out in @natecoevo.nature.com - now with open access PDFs:

Related microbes globally share similar ecological communities, extending classical ecological patterns to the microbial realm 🦠🌎

Read more: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Research Briefing: rdcu.be/e0K14

🔊 Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bacterial Evolution.

Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠

3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share!
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...

Bacterial immune systems as causes and consequences of microbiome structure Bacterial immune systems have evolved in response to diverse molecular "parasites", yet their ecological roles remain poorly understood. This Essay explores how interactions between mobile genetic ele...

Very happy to see this piece out in @plosbiology.org, on the bacterial immune systems and microbial communities. It was a great team effort with Rafael Custodio, @brockhurstlab.bsky.social , @brownlab.bsky.social, and Edze Westra! 🦠🧫 #phagesky #mevosky

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

PhD studentship opportunity! Join us at St Andrews to study the factors controlling plasmid transmission in the gut. Competition-funded as part of the EASTBIO DTP, co-supervised with Dr Jaclyn Pearson. Please share & pass on to anyone interested! 🦠🧫 Deadline 15th December👇

MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Resistant zombies: how drug-resistance plasmids manipulate the behaviour of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa at University of Liverpool on Fin... PhD Project - MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Resistant zombies: how drug-resistance plasmids manipulate the behaviour of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa at University of Li...

🚨#PhD studentship opportunity! Plasmids provide bacteria with antimicrobial resistance, but do they have more fundamental effects on behaviour? 🧫🦠💫🧟‍♂️

Apply for a 4y funded MRC DiMeN position with me and Jamie Wheeler @livuni-ives.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

PhyloWeaver – Interactive phylogenetic tree editor Edit and visualize phylogenetic trees directly in your browser. PhyloWeaver lets you interactively rearrange tree topologies and export high-quality figures for publications and presentations.

I’ve released a tool to sketch and edit phylogenetic trees!
yawak.jp/PhyloWeaver/

Load a Newick file and intuitively add/remove/resize branches.
Useful for quick conceptual trees, extracting subtrees, or turning ideas into Newick.

I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the @biology.ox.ac.uk department - thanks so much for hosting me @annadewar.bsky.social !
And thanks to everyone who chatted to me about plasmids, genomes, and more.
I even manage to find a phage in the natural history museum before leaving :)

Great to have Dr David Sünderhauf visit Oxford over the past couple of days!

A really nice talk on competition between plasmids carrying CRISPR-Cas and Toxin-antitoxin systems. Theory, experiments and bioinformatics all in one project!

@davvi36.bsky.social @biology.ox.ac.uk

Thank you Xavier, really glad to hear you’ve enjoyed reading it!

Amazing, congratulations Tabea!! 🥳

Come and work with us! Three new academic posts (including Animal Behaviour) and superb facilities in the new Life & Mind Building

Thanks Ashleigh! 😊

Evidence that lifestyle drives genome fluidity from @annadewar.bsky.social today. Keeping everyone going on last day of @eseb2025.bsky.social! Great talk Anna!

Such a nice summary, thanks Jesse!! Hope we cross paths soon :)

I'm super bummed to be missing #ESEB2025 @eseb2025.bsky.social due to a cancelled flight! Here's a quick overview of my talk "Gene- and genome-focused perspectives on microbial pangenomes" slated to be part of The Evolution of Microbial Pangenomes -- which I recommend you attend tomorrow (Fri) !
1/n

OrthoFinder just dropped a major update

It’s faster, more accurate, and ready for thousands of genomes

Let’s break it down (1/10)

github.com/OrthoFinder/...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Get OrthoFinder here github.com/OrthoFinder/...

Read the preprint here www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Millions of species here we come!

(10/10)

Chromosomal capture of beneficial genes drives plasmids toward ecological redundancy Abstract. Plasmids are a ubiquitous feature of bacterial genomes, but the forces driving genes and phenotypes to become associated with plasmids are poorly

New paper with @rwheatley8.bsky.social and Cedric Lood

Actual title: Chromosomal capture of beneficial genes drives plasmids towards ecological redundancy.

Sensationalist title: Plasmids carry useless genes

academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

Haha sounds good! Thanks for your interest in our work 😊

It's just that the transfer of plasmids doesn't seem to appreciably facilitate the invasion and maintenance of cooperation in bacteria. 2/2

Antibiotic resistance mechanisms are sometimes cooperative, but often they're not. So our work only applies to those with a cooperative resistance mechanism.

Just to be clear, plasmids are important for transferring lots of useful genes, including antibiotic resistance, among bacteria. 1/2

Plasmids do not consistently stabilize cooperation across bacteria but may promote broad pathogen host-range - Nature Ecology & Evolution Horizontal gene transfer could stabilize cooperation in bacteria because plasmids could promote the transfer of genes encoding public goods. However, the authors use comparative analysis and theoretic...

Hi! Here's a couple of additional papers we've published on this question:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
& doi.org/10.1093/evle...

Together they provide pretty good evidence, using genomic analyses and theory, that plasmid transfer doesn't really impact the evolution of cooperation in bacteria.

Anna Dewar @annadewar.bsky.social asks what types of genes get horizontally transferred in bacteria 🦠🧬➡️🧬🦠

Contrary to previous thinking, plasmids didn't carry more cooperation genes than the core genome.

#Evol2025 #Evol25