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Rolf Kümmerli

Rolf Kümmerli
Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
University of Zurich
Winterthurerstrasse 190
8057 Zurich
Switzerland
rolf.kuemmerli@uzh.ch
Research in the past decade has revealed that bacteria exhibit a wide range of social behaviours, including communication, the formation of multicellular structures such as biofilms and fruiting bodies, and the secretion of extra-cellular beneficial metabolites (public goods). It is challenging to explain the evolution and maintenance of such cooperative behaviour because, by default, we would expect non-cooperative mutants (cheats) to exploit and displace cooperative individuals.

Our group aims to understand the conditions required for cooperation to be maintained in bacterial populations. We primarily focus on the secretion of siderophores – public goods used to scavenge insoluble iron from the environment – in the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Besides seeking to understand the evolutionary dynamics between cooperative and exploitative strains at the population level, we are also interested in how the burden of cooperation is shared among individual cells within a clonal population. Furthermore, we are also interested in understanding how competitive interactions between cooperative and cheating strains influence the outcome of infections in hosts. In this context, siderophores are often important virulence factors, and selection for or against cooperation can strongly influence the severity of an infection.

In addition to microbes, we are also interested in the evolution and maintenance of cooperation in higher organisms, such as ants and primates
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