In the first part of the talk I revisits the problem of diversity on a single, limiting
resource in the chemostat. In particular, we ask what is
the minimal metabolic complexity a replicator must
have in order to observe long-term diversity in a homogeneous
environment?
Bacterial model systems have been used over the last
two decades or so to test ecological and evolutionary theory.
Here we ask, using an experimental system of obligately lytic
T3 phage and the microbe E.coli B in the chemostat,
when altering the supply of abiotic resource, are experimentally-observed changes in diversity
typical or atypical within the class of all possible
spatially homogeneous host-pathogen interactions?
Results/Conclusions
We finish the talk by explaining why, as resource availability changes, there is a sense in which there is no universal form for the bacteria and phage diversity relationship;
we conclude that this concept lacks generalisibility.
