Halmos Professor Coauthors Study with Canadian Scientists

NSU Professor Louis R. Nemzer, Ph.D., of the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences recently coauthored a research study with scientists from the University of Ottawa about the effect of network connectivity on the probability that a novel trait will evolve in a spatially separated population.

This collaboration started when Prof. Nemzer was visiting Canada as a Fulbright distinguished research chair on a Sabbatical during the 2019-2020 academic year. Evolutionary graph theory (EGT) is a field of study that attempts to describe organisms that live on separate patches connected by possible migration paths. The researchers felt that the previously used EGT models did not capture the nuances of real life, so Nemzer wrote a new agent-based model that kept track of each simulated bacterium individually.

The in silico results were compared with in vitro experiments with real bacteria, which helped support the conclusion that network connectivity can, in some situations, increase the chance a favorable mutation will eventually become widespread in a population. This work can help explain the ways antibiotic resistance can emerge, especially in settings that contain disparate locations, such as a hospital or neighborhood.

“I want to thank my amazing colleagues at the University of Ottawa, as well as the Fulbright program for promoting international cooperation on projects that impact all of humanity, such as the challenge of antibiotic resistance,” Prof. Nemzer said.

The research was just published in Evolution Letters, which is ranked among the top 15 journals in the field of Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics.

Posted 10/22/23