Rosalind Allen, School of Physics, UoE

Title: Making models for microbial ecosystems

Abstract: Many of the Earth's most important biogeochemical cycles, as well as industrial processes like wastewater treatment, and human gut health, rely on communities of microbes. Even though microbes are apparently simple microscopic organisms, they can show complex community dynamics that so far is very poorly understood. I will discuss our recent attempts to make mathematical models for microbial community dynamics, motivated by laboratory experiments on nutrient-cycling microbial microcosms.