R. Craig MacLean

The study shows that fitness costs of antibiotic resistance mutations in rich media do not reliably predict their costs in infection-like environments, with increased costs in lung-mimicking media and reduced prevalence in urinary tract-mimicking media.

The paper quantifies host-lineage restriction of plasmid backbones in E. coli isolates and shows how this restriction structures plasmid co-occurrence.

This study shows that competition reduces thermal adaptation in bacteriophages under fluctuating temperatures compared to monoculture conditions.

This study shows that combining DNA-damaging agents with antibiotics can reduce resistance evolution in specific hypermutator bacterial genotypes but not others.

This study shows that multidrug resistance plasmids face a trade-off between phage resistance and conjugative ability, which affects their evolutionary response to plasmid-dependent phages.

This study shows evolutionary rescue prevents parasite extinction but can destabilize communities by promoting competitive exclusion in a viral parasite system under thermal stress.

The paper analyzes 2,559 E. coli plasmids to show that antibiotic resistance genes and phage defense systems are physically linked, suggesting potential interactions between antibiotic use and phage therapy.

The paper compares the fitness effects of chromosomal and plasmid genes in Rhizobium leguminosarum, finding that plasmids are depleted in beneficial genes, especially ancient ones, suggesting evolutionary pressure drives beneficial genes to the chromosome.

This study shows antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa can both help and hinder its ability to invade respiratory microbiomes, depending on the commensal microbes involved.

This study examines how Pseudomonas aeruginosa adapts to repeated invasion of Staphylococcus epidermidis, showing divergent evolutionary responses between monoculture and coculture conditions.

This study shows CRISPR-Cas systems in Pseudomonas aeruginosa limit horizontal gene transfer by targeting phage and conjugative elements, leading to smaller genomes and reduced GC content.