Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Evolution & Biodiversity research theme focuses on understanding how bacteria sense and respond to their environment, and how bacterial diversity and evolution is influenced by cooperative and antagonistic interactions taking place between microbes.

Our experimental studies examine the chemical ecology of Streptomyces, the evolution of antibiotic production and resistance in nature and in bacterial pathogens, the origin of complex cells and the evolution of multicellularity, among other topics.