Symbiotic wonders across the Tree of Life

Why studying microbe-host relationships is essential to understanding and conserving flora and fauna?

Across the Tree of Life, multicellular organisms including ourselves, are home to a diversity of microbes. They inhabit myriad environments, coating the skin, and the leaves and roots of plants, they live in tissues and organs, and even within cells.

In some instances, relationships with microbes are so connected that hosts cannot survive in their absence. This has led to multicellular organisms no longer being viewed as single entities, but rather as holobionts: combinations of multicellular hosts and microbes that mutually influence each other’s behaviour, ecology, and evolution. So, when conserving species, both in the wild and in animal populations under managed care in zoos, we must consider their microbiome too.

In this event, speakers will introduce how microbe-host relationships vary across select branches of the Tree of Life. These include amphibian microbiomes, the evolution of symbiosis in bark beetles, and the advances in chemistry that are revealing how microbes provide their hosts with pharmacies on-tap. Our keynote guest speaker for the evening, Dr Sarah Knowles, University of Oxford, will present her intriguing work on the gut microbiome of wild mice and how this is reshaping our understanding of mammalian biology.

The Leverhulme Centre for the Holobiont was launched in 2022 as part of a ten-year project to solve some of the great mysteries of holobionts, with of a goal of generating improved and more holistic approaches to species and ecosystem conservation. With this field still in its infancy, fundamental microbiome-multicell relationships must be studied further, and characterised across a swathe of macrobiodiversity.

Speakers

• Dr Sarah Knowles, University of Oxford, Of mice and microbes: linking gut microbiome variation to physiology in the wild
• Dr Phil Jervis, Institute of Zoology, ZSL
• Dr Elliot Murphy, Imperial College London
• Dr Theo Llewellyn, Imperial College London

Find out more about the event and other future events here.

Attending this event

• This Science and Conservation Event is free to attend but registration is required so we can monitor event numbers.
• The event will feature talks from the speakers, followed by a Q&A discussion panel. It will run from 6:00pm - 7:30pm, and doors will open at 5:30pm.
• Seats are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Venue: Huxley Lecture Theatre at the Meeting Rooms of the Zoological Society of London, Regents Park, NW1 4RY.
• Travel: Nearest underground: Camden Town Station; Nearest bus: no. 274.
• Recording disclaimer: The presentations and Q&A session will be recorded, and the recording published on our Science and Conservation YouTube channel afterwards. Please be aware that by attending this event you consent to be filmed or your voice to be recorded during the Q&A session, which will be included in the published video.

Further Information

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