Coevolving with our microbial partners - Lessons from the Hawaiian Archipelago

Ernst Mayr Lecture

26. November 2024

Akademiegebäude am Gendarmenmarkt, Einstein-Saal, Jägerstraße 22/23, 10117 Berlin

All animals evolved in microbe-rich aquatic environments. However, it was not until recently that biologists have discovered that associations with microorganisms are critical for the normal biology of most, if not all, animal species.

© Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)

Some of these relationships involve tightly coevolved symbioses. This lecture will focus upon one example of this phenomenon, the partnership between the Hawaiian bobtail squid and its luminous bacterial partner. This system is providing a model for the study of the chronic colonization of bacteria along the surfaces of epithelia, perhaps the most common type of symbiotic association in the animal kingdom. 

A lecture by Margaret McFall-Ngai (California Institute of Technology/ Fellow Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).


THE LECTURE SERIES

The Ernst Mayr Lecture is a lecture series in the field of the life sciences sponsored by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin   . The biennial lecture aims to communicate the development of biological thinking by leading scientists from various disciplines to a wider audience. The series thus refers to one of the main works of the ornithologist and evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (1904-2005) entitled „The Growth of Biological Thought“ and was inaugurated by himself in autumn 1997.


ABSTRACT

My research program focuses on the study of animal-bacterial symbiosis. In collaboration with Ned Ruby, the microbiologist studying the association, we investigate the partnership between the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, and its luminous bacterial symbiont, Vibrio fischeri. Our projects have centered on the development of the squid-vibrio association as a model for the establishment and maintenance of the chronic colonization of animal epithelia by Gram-negative bacteria, a type of symbiosis that occurs widely among animals. For example, this type of partnership occurs in the human gastrointestinal tract, but, in this context, the associations are highly complex with hundreds to thousands of bacterial partners living with a human host. In contrast, the squid-vibrio system is very simple, i.e., one host and one microbial species. Both partners can be cultured independently under laboratory conditions, allowing for high-resolution manipulation of the association. In my presentation, I will provide background on the importance of the symbiosis for the host squid’s ecology and then focus on the role of circadian rhythms in the maintenance of the symbiosis. The talk will finish with mention of collaborative studies in which our research has been involved in the transition between discovery and application.  

Margaret McFall-Ngai is currently a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2024-25, Faculty Associate at California Institute of Technology and a Senior Researcher of Carnegie Science. She received her PhD at the University of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and held two postdoctoral positions, one at UCLA Medical Center with Professor Joseph Horwitz and one at Scripps Institution of Oceanography with Professor George Somero. She holds Doctor of Honoris Causa positions at EPFL in Lausanne and University Claude Bernard in Lyon. She has held tenured faculty positions at University of Southern California, University of Hawaii and University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Her research group studies the role of beneficial bacteria in health using the squid-vibrio model. The work to date on this system has demonstrated that the basic functions governing animal-bacterial interactions are highly conserved, and promises to continue to provide valuable insight into the biology of more complex systems, such that of the human microbiota. McFall-Ngai has also been heavily involved in promoting microbiology as the cornerstone of the field of biology.    
 


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