Science Of The Times

Professor of Computational Microbiology at University of Oxford

Author of The Universal History of Us published by Penguin 2024 Professor of Zoology, University of Oxford EcologyEvolution, Existence, Science

I study the spread of symbiotic microbiota in the social contact networks of wild mice. My background is in island ecology, and this has led me to study wild animals as if they are moving islands, carrying a mini-ecosystem of bacteria inside of them. Whenever two animals come in close contact, there is a chance for these microbes to spread between them. Thus we can treat the social networks of animals as the road map (or bridge map) for microbiome transmission, which shapes the unique and influential gut microbial communities living inside these animals. To achieve this, I'm involved with developing new RFID-based tracking and trapping technology to collect high-resolution gut microbial and behavioural data. In addition, I'm developing Bayesian regression methods for analysing pairwise data, such as linking microbiota similarity between two individuals to the strength of their social association.

Eveliina Hanski is a scientist working on the microbes living in the mammalian gut. This remarkable ecosystem, commonly known as the gut microbiome, is now recognized to play an important role in the physiology of the animal housing it