Matthew Asker

How do bottlenecks affect mutant takeover in spatial metapopulations?

Our pre-print reveals that bottleneck strength, frequency, and cell migration intricately drive fixation and extinction - even leading to interesting non-monotonic behaviour.

Check it out: doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.08433

Photo from the Harrogate Japanese garden of the research group I'm a part of.

Me, caught slightly off-guard, presenting my poster on "Fixation and extinction in time-fluctuating metapopulations".

Had a great time at the @physicsoflifeuk.bsky.social conference in Harrogate this year! Really fantastic to see all the good work ongoing and the community thriving, particularly the ECR part 😄

If you're at the @physicsoflifeuk.bsky.social Physics of Life 2025 conference, come talk to me at my poster (#23) later on today! I'm looking at fixation and extinction on time-fluctuating metapopulations 🦠

Metals, Microbes, and Mathematics: Understanding Coexistence with Toxic Nutrients at Durham University on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Metals, Microbes, and Mathematics: Understanding Coexistence with Toxic Nutrients at Durham University, listed on FindAPhD.com

We're advertising a fully-funded PhD project at Durham in understanding microbial ecology from a theoretical and multidisciplinary perspective! More details below. Feel free to email me, Denis Patterson, or @thecopperdoctor.bsky.social. March 31st deadline.

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Having thought about it more, (A) does not necessarily imply that X_t is a martingale, right? Only that its average does not drift away from 0.5. So, assuming X_t is a martingale, then the two statements are equivalent. If X_t is not a martingale, I'm not sure at all. Very interesting question!

Yes, absolutely! Had been thinking of a very similar process regarding how the Markov property affects things. I think the condition is that the process is a martingale and not that it has the Markov property for B to imply A. Apologies for the mistake!

To me, it seems that (A) implies (B) so long as the process has absorbing boundaries, even if the behaviour is non-Markovian. Also, if X_t is unbounded, (A) can still model neutrality nicely.

I think (B) only implies (A) if the process is Markovian. So (A) appears the stronger condition.

Environment‐Organism Feedbacks Drive Changes in Ecological Interactions Ecological interactions are central to our understanding of the composition and function of communities, but attempts to use them as a theoretical foundation for experimental ecology have been confou....

Our framework explaining why ecological interactions change between contexts is out in Ecology Letters!
A lovely collaboration with @saramitri.bsky.social which provides experimentally-testable links between the physiology and ecology of microbes.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our (@vishuguttal.bsky.social and I) Synthesis of the effects of demographic stochasticity on eco-evolutionary dynamics is now out in @asn-amnat.bsky.social ! Feel free to message/email me if you need a copy or want to chat about the paper :)

🧬🌍🧪

My copy of "On the Origin of Species".

Found a lovely copy of "On the Origin of Species" over the break. Surprisingly entertaining to read with a modern evolutionary biology perspective! Absolutely nails certain points despite no knowledge of genetics. Can't believe I hadn't tried reading it sooner.

PhD studentship alert!

Fully funded, co-supervised with @rokkrasovec.bsky.social and Prof Mike Bromley, University of Manchester

Exploring routes of horizontal gene transfer in pathogenic fungi

Exciting project, will be a bunch of fun! Come & join us 🔬

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Understanding and leveraging phenotypic plasticity during metastasis formation - npj Systems Biology and Applications npj Systems Biology and Applications - Understanding and leveraging phenotypic plasticity during metastasis formation

None taken (check the alt text 😆)

Adaptive dynamics and similar are used to great effect (doi.org/10.1093/evolut/qpad042). Also phenotypic switching / plasticity, which occurs in bacteria & cancer (doi.org/10.1038/s41540-023-00309-1 + self-promo :P doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ad0d36). DM me for more!

a red tractor is driving through a field with the words awesome written on the bottom ALT: a red tractor is driving through a field with the words awesome written on the bottom

That's what I wanted to hear!

Resharing my attempt at a #mathbio starter pack for those (millions?!) of people who've joined in the last week!

Please let me know if you'd like to be added (I've not kept up with the incoming hordes well)

go.bsky.app/GVkxwBv

Thanks for this Joshua, could I be added please? P.S. how are you feeling for Sunday? 🚜

Check out this #SMB #SocietyMathBio starter pack. This was the default Starter Pack set up on our feed, but we can add to this as well to help build the mathematical biology community on BlueSky.

go.bsky.app/2sXtZV4

Could I be added to the list please? Thanks in advance!

An aerial photo of the centre of Durham city on a snowy winter day. A river encircles the centre containing Durham's Castle and Cathedral. Photo courtesy of RJX Media.

Join us in Durham for a fully-funded multidisciplinary PhD studying Metals, Microbes, Maths, and Metabolism! Please pass this along to interested candidates who are welcome to contact us directly. Both theoretical and/or experimental backgrounds welcome!

iapetus2.ac.uk/studentships...

A picture of me with my hand on a statue of Darwin, taken at the Natural History Museum in London. I look far happier about it than he does.

Just another part of the mass exodus here starting anew and looking for my people!

I'm Matthew, a PhD student at Leeds working on eco-evolutionary models of biology, particularly regarding AMR and cancer.

I play & watch football, run, and paint Warhammer. Also, Darwin and I are best buds.