According to the hologenome theory of evolution, the target of natural selection might not always be the individual organism, but the holobiont, i.e., the organism with its associated microbial community. An interdisciplinary team of MGSE PIs and PhD students from Biology and Philosophy explores the basic assumptions and consequences of the holobiont concept for evolution and ecology in a paper that has now been published in Theory in Biosciences. Their joint work on the project began with a workshop organized by MGSE PI (and former ETT-Fellow) Jürgen Gadau in 2014 and subsequent topic group meetings. Catania F, Krohs U, Chitto M, Ferro D, Ferro K, Lepennetier G, Gortz HD, Schreiber RS, Kurtz J & Gadau J (2016) The hologenome concept: We need to incorporate function. Theory in Biosciences. 10.1007/s12064-016-0240-z [doi]

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has granted the WWU funding for a Research Training Group on „Evolutionary Processes in Adaptation and Disease (EvoPAD)”. PhD students within EvoPAD will use knowledge derived from the theory of evolution to achieve a deeper understanding of the processes that are underlying adaptation and disease. They will be mentored by 17 scientists from the Faculty of Biology, the Medical Faculty, and the Department of Philosophy – 15 of whom are also Principal Investigators of the MGSE. EvoPAD is one of 20 new Research Training Groups funded by the DFG which offer PhD students the chance to complete their theses in a structured research and qualification programme at a high academic level. The project will be funded for a period of 4.5 years starting from April 2017 with almost 4 Million Euros. Press release by the DFG Press release by the WWU EvoPAD Website

The first MGSE PhD Student Retreat took place on 24 - 26 October 2016 at the marine biological tideland station of the WWU in Carolinensiel along the tidelands of Lower Saxony. It brought together the PhD student community to present their projects and exchange experiences and knowledge in a focused but nevertheless enjoyable atmosphere. To inspire the PhD students and give them valuable feedback, MGSE PIs Joachim Kurtz, Jürgen Gadau, and Sebastian Leidel joined the event. Furthermore, Tobias Krause from the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute in Celle was invited as external speaker to provide additional input. Science apart, the participants enjoyed some time playing games or exploring the beautiful area at the coast. Thanks to everybody who participated! We are looking forward to the next retreat. Pictures

In October, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Gadau and Prof. Dr. Christoph Scherber were accepted as new PIs of the MGSE. Jürgen Gadau moved from the Arizona State University to the University of Münster in November, where he now holds a professorship for Molecular Evolutionary Biology at the Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity. His research focuses on speciation, species differences, and adaptations in solitary and social Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) using a range of genetic and genomic techniques. In summer 2014, Jürgen Gadau visited the MGSE already as Fellow of the Evolution Think Tank. We are happy that the fellowship apparently has whetted his appetite for more ;-).
Christoph Scherber leads the Animal Ecology and Multitrophic Interactions Group at the Institute of Landscape Ecology at the WWU. In his research he focuses on the diversity of life on earth, in particular on the effects of changes in biodiversity on ecosystem processes such as plant-insect interactions and herbivory, and how biodiversity loss can be counteracted. Moreover, he is interested in anthropogenic environmental changes in a variety of ecosystems.
A warm welcome to our new PIs!

MGSE member Jürgen Schmitz and previous MGSE student Angela Noll led together with Wesley Warren at Washington University the Tarsius syrichta genome project, belonging to the last of the primate orders to be sequenced and analyzed.
Mobile genetic elements in the genome of Tarsius syrichta (recently ascribed as Carlito syrichta) were the main focus of the analysis that uncovered unusual genomic reshuffling processes. The analyses revealed a copy of an entire mitochondrial genome in the nuclear genome as well as novel jumping elements; both of which underline the unique nature of this night active jungle dweller. The results also improved our understanding of the human genome and molecular evolution in general.
The Tarsius genome project was the result of an extremely fruitful collaboration of the medical and biological faculties in Münster and an external cooperation with the German Primate Center in Göttingen. The latter was especially fruitful for MGSE PhD student Angela Noll, who is now the leading bioinformatics scientist at the Primate Center.
The genome and its analyses were recently published in Nature Communications: Schmitz J, Noll A, Raabe C, Churakov G, Voss R, Kiefmann M, Rozhdestvensky T, Brosius J, Baertsch R, Clawson H, Roos C, Zimin A, Minx P, Montague MJ, Wilson RK, Warren WC (2016). Genome sequence of the basal haplorrhine primate Tarsius syrichta reveals unusual insertions. Nature Communications 7, 12997. The press release of the German Primate Center can be found here and the press release of the WWU can be found here.

We are excited to announce that the MGSE has moved to a new office building. From 6 October, we are accommodated on two floors in Hüfferstr. 1a, next to the Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity (IEB) and within 3 min walking distance to Münster’s City Palace. The ‘yellow villa’ will enable us to provide more space for our ETT-Fellows and PhD students and to make collaboration with the IEB even more comfortable. For lectures and other larger events, the northern Kavaliershäuschen will still be available for us.
We are looking forward to meeting you in our new office building.

We welcome Nicolle Demandt as new member of the MGSE PhD programme. Nicolle started her PhD in the Animal Evolutionary Ecology Group at the Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity (IEB) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Joachim Kurtz. In her PhD project she plans to investigate how animal personality, social environment, and immunity are interconnected. As model system she will use three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). The project is a cooperation between the Animal Evolutionary Ecology Group at the IEB (J. Kurtz, J. Scharsack) and the Department of Behavioual Biology (N. Sachser) at the WWU. Nicolle holds a DAAD scholarship in course of the DAAD Graduate School Scholarship Programme. The MGSE was selected by the DAAD in Spring 2014 to nominate and host 4 international graduate students within this programme.
We wish Nicolle a good start in Münster!

MGSE PI Jürgen Schmitz and PhD student Liliya Doronina from the Institute of Experimental Pathology were part of a team that used molecular and genomic data to support the hotly debated hypothesis that colugos – gliding mammals confined to evergreen tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia – are the sister group to primates, to the exclusion of tree shrews. Comparative genomic analysis offered hints about specific adaptations in the colugo lineage, e.g., signs of positive selection affecting genes related to vision and hearing that likely underlie their nocturnal adaptations. At the same time, the investigation of sequence data from colugo museum specimens indicated that there may be far more colugo species than previously recognized. The results of the study have important implications for the understanding and interpretation of early primate origins and evolution as well as for the conservation of the sole living members of the order Dermoptera.
The findings were published in August 2016 in Sciences Advances (Mason et al. (2016) Genomic analysis reveals hidden biodiversity within colugos, the sister group to primates. Science Advances 2: e1600633). The press release of the WWU can be found here.

We are happy to announce that Stefanie Henze has successfully defender her PhD thesis entitled "The impact of nitrogen deprivation on genome evolution in Escherichia coli”. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Claudia Acquisti in the Evolutionary Functional Genomics Group at the Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity. The other members of the PhD Supervision Committee were Prof. Dr. Prof. Ulrich Dobrindt (Microbial Genome Plasticity, Institute of Hygiene) and Prof. Dr. Joachim Kurtz (Animal Evolutionary Ecology, Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity). We wish Stefanie all the best for the future!

Congratulations to Patricia Kearney who successfully defended her PhD Thesis entitled 'Sporophyte development in Rhynia gwynne-vaughanii, an Early Devonian vascular land plant from the Rhynie chert, Aberdeenshire, UK' on 6 May 2016. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Hans Kerp in the Palaeobotany Research Group at the Institute for Geology and Palaeontology. The other members of the PhD Supervision Committee were Prof. Dr. Ralph Thomas Becker (Palaeontology, Institute for Geology and Palaeontology) and Prof. Kai Müller (Evolution and Biodiversity of Plants, Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity).
We wish Patricia all the best for the future!

MGSE PI Jürgen Schmitz and PhD student Tabea Kischka have been involved in the development of a comprehensive statistical framework for testing the significance of support for phylogenetic hypotheses derived from genome-level data and for evaluating possible retroposon presence/absence patterns for different evolutionary scenarios, including polytomy, incomplete lineage sorting, and ancestral hybridization. The new KKSC insertion significance test is especially important for the high-throughput applications of current and upcoming genome projects. It is available online in a user-friendly R-application. The KKSC insertion significance was published as cover story  in PLoS Computational Biology in March 2016 (Kuritzin et al. (2016) Incomplete Lineage Sorting and Hybridization Statistics for Large-Scale Retroposon Insertion Data. PLoS Computational Biology 12:e1004812). The press release of the WWU can be found here.

On 15 April, Diana Ferro from the Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity was awarded with her doctoral degree for her thesis on the ‘Evolution of antioxidant system genes in eukaryotes’, supervised by Prof. Dr. Joachim Kurtz, PD Dr. Jürgen Schmitz and Prof. Dr. Gianfranco Santovito (University of Padova). In her PhD project Diana focussed on the molecular characterization of antioxidant system genes from a multidisciplinary point of view. Using different model organisms such as the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena thermophile or the Antarctic fish Trematomus bernacchii, she studied gene architecture, gene transcription and translation, and the resulting protein activity of different components of the antioxidant system to gain a comprehensive understanding of the evolution and function of antioxidant genes.
We offer Diana our warmest congratulations and wish her well in her future career!

A warm welcome to our new PhD students, Nadja Haarmann and Marco Chittò. Nadja started her PhD in the research group of PD Dr. Alexander Mellmann at the Institute of Hygiene at the University Hospital Münster. In her PhD project she focusses on the impact of the pAA plasmid on virulence in an enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) strain to investigate possible regulation mechanisms modulated by pAA-encoded antisense RNA regarding virulence gene regulation. Nadja will determine the impact of pAA loss which can attenuate pathogenicity and is interested in the influence of the pAA plasmid on chromosomal gene regulation and what consequences follow after loss of the plasmid.
Marco works in the research group of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Dobrindt at the Institute of Hygiene at the University Hospital Münster. In his PhD project he will study the regulation and function of pathogenicity island (PAI)-encoded integrases in E. coli. He will use molecular techniques to determine under which growth conditions PAI-encoded integrase genes are optimally expressed and characterize the importance of regulatory factors involved in xenogenic silencing for regulation and functionality of individual PAI-encoded integrases. Further information on the new members and their projects can be found here.

On Saturday, 9 April 2016, the MGSE co-organized a plenary session on 'Evolution of Viruses - Viruses in Evolution" at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Society for Virology (GfV) that was held from 6 - 9 April in Münster and stood under the main theme 'Viruses in Motion'. The plenary session focussed on the evolutionary motion of viral pathogens including their role in evolution of higher organisms and included the following talks: Prof. Raul Andino (San Francisco, CA/US) – ‘Mechanisms and consequences of RNA virus micro-evolution’, Prof. Martin Schwemmle (Freiburg, DE) - ‘Reverse genetic analysis of the newly discovered bat influenza A-like viruses’, Robert Belshaw (Plymouth, Devon/GB) – ‘Paleovirology and our 100-million-year co-evolution with endogenous retroviruses’. The plenary session was complemented by a workshop session on the topic with short talks from submitted abstracts on the day before.
The Society for Virology (GfV) is by now the greatest virological community in Europe with currently 1,300 members and covers the field of virology from basic research to medical virology. Its annual meeting is the most important event for virologists in the German-speaking area and brings together around 1000 scientists from all over the world, ranging from young graduate students to internationally experts in the field. The press release on the conference can be found here.

Banco Santander and the University of Münster are continuing their successful cooperation: On 27 January 2016, they signed an extension of the existing cooperation agreement  which was formed in 2013 for another three years. In the course of this collaboration, Santander will proceed to support the Evolution Think Tank of the MGSE which promotes the development of a sustainable interdisciplinary research and education programme at the forefront of evolutionary research. With the help of Santander, the MGSE will be able to invite further internationally outstanding scientists from different disciplines as ETT-Fellows. They will closely interact with the PhD students and PIs of the MGSE  to develop new ideas and establish mechanisms for the transfer and application of evolutionay knowledge at the interface of life sciences and philosophy. In addition to the ETT, Santander will continue to support the international centre "Die Brücke", the WWU Graduate Centre, the "ProTalent" scholarship programme and as a special project the 'XIX Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas' in 2016 in Münster.  Banco Santander is currently the largest investor in education in the world (Varkey/UNESCO report – Fortune 500) and holds collaboration agreements with more than 1,100 universities and institutions worldwide.
On the occassion of three years support by 'Santander Universiäten', the University of Münster published a booklet summarizing activities and accomplishments between 2013 - 2015. The booklet 'Internationalisation as key to excellence' can be viewed here. Press release

The Science Pub Münster series started into the new year with a fascinating talk by Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas C.G. Bosch from the Zoological Institute at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. While the audience enjoyed their after-work beer together with some tasty tapas and 'Flammkuchen' at the Wine Bar Idéal, they learned about the close symbiotic relationship with their intestinal microbiota and its essential role in maintaining human health. Prof. Bosch introduced the concept of the meta-organism, illustrated how an organism and the microbes that colonize it form a functional unit, and how the understanding of the underlying host-microbe species associations has become the new frontier in zoology. His talk was opened and concluded with Michael Jackson's number one hit 'You are not alone', which certainly took on an entirely different meaining throughout the evening.