#652 Steven Frank - Microbial Life History: The Fundamental Forces of Biological Design
RECORDED ON MARCH 22nd 2022.
Dr. Steven Frank is Donald Bren Professor & UCI Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. His areas of expertise are evolutionary genetics, host-parasite interactions and social evolution. He is the author of books like Foundations of Social Evolution, Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Disease, and more recently, Microbial Life History: The Fundamental Forces of Biological Design.
In this episode, we focus on Microbial Life History. We start with general questions related to biological design; three fundamental forces of design: marginal values; reproductive values; generalized kin selection; evolutionary and organismal responses to the environment; how to know what selective pressures produce a trait; predicting changes in traits; the origins versus the modification of traits; genetic and phenotypic changes; the evolution of phenotypic plasticity; and adaptationism. We then talk about aspects of microbial metabolism, like growth; thermodynamics; flux; and enzyme catalysts. Finally, we discuss the principles of biological design.
Time Links:
Intro
Design, from an evolutionary perspective
Three fundamental forces of design: marginal values; reproductive values; generalized kin selection
Evolutionary and organismal responses to the environment
The selective pressures that produced a particular trait
Predicting changes in traits
The origins vs. the modification of traits
What changes first, genes or the phenotype?
The evolution of phenotypic plasticity
Adaptationism
Microbial metabolism: growth; thermodynamics; flux; enzyme catalysts
Principles of biological design
Follow Dr. Frank’s work!
Follow Dr. Frank’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/3qIeGYK
Website: https://bit.ly/3ClVr9e
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3Cm8R5o
Amazon page: https://amzn.to/3ptaTNf