Moebius Group Effects of the physical world on dynamics in biological systems News Thomas Tunstall’s paper on ‘Tuning Spatial Distributions of Selection Pressure to Suppress Emergence of Resistance’ has been accepted for publication in Theoretical Population Biology. Together with Phil Madgwick and Ricardo Kanitz from Syngenta, we investigated the evolutionary consequences of spatially patterning pesticide application. Specifically, we wondered what size regions of pesticide application should have to minimise the emergence of resistance. A one-dimensional model and its detailed analysis led to numerical solutions and analytical estimates for how cropping regions can be optimally protected. In addition, our results provide us with the insights and intuition needed for extending the work to two dimensions and optimisation under real-world constraints. Research Interests We are interested in how the physical world shapes the dynamics in biological systems. Most often, it is the evolutionary dynamics we are investigating, but with collaborators we are also exploring the dynamics of individual molecules. We are a combined theoretical and experimental group and care deeply about the interaction between theory and experiment. We use a range of theoretical approaches and simulation techniques to investigate evolution in abstract models and specific biological systems, from the infection of bacteria by their viruses to the evolution of resistance to pesticides. Experimentally, our current model system of choice is bacteriophage T7 replicating on the bacterium E. coli, where we aim for experiments with explicit spatial structure that can be analysed and described quantitatively. In collaborations with colleagues, we investigate other systems, such as infection of the plant N. benthamiana with the plant virus TEV. While much of our research aims to understand basic principles behind evolutionary dynamics in complex environments, we often perform our research with applications in mind. List of group members: Piotr Burzynski, PhD Student Hannah Kilford, outgoing PhD Student List of publications: See Wolfram Möbius’ profile on LSI website Dr Wolfram Moebius