Microbial Interactions in Structured Environments

by Dr David Scheidweiler (EPFL)

Monday 18 May 2026, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Rome

1/3-1 - Sala R (Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia - Edificio Marzolo)

Monday 18 May at 4.30 pm in R room there will be the seminar of  Dr. David Scheidweiler, from EPFL

 

Title: Microbial Interactions in Structured Environments

From soils to hosts, microorganisms inhabit spatially heterogeneous ecosystems where physical structure, transport processes, and chemical gradients shape microbial life at every scale. Yet most mechanistic studies rely on well-mixed, masking the reciprocal influences of environment and ecology. Bridging this gap requires to account for the structural and chemical landscapes that microorganisms actually sense. Recent advances in synthetic biology, microfluidics, and microscopy now allow the study of microbial systems in controlled environments that better reproduce the structural and chemical complexity of natural ecosystems. These approaches offer new opportunities to investigate how physical constraints influence microbial life across scales. In this seminar, I will present examples on how the physical environment regulates microbial interactions ranging from collective behaviours within single populations to cooperation within gut microbial communities. In particular, I will focus on how flow, and chemical gradients shape bacterial signalling, metabolic interactions, and the assembly of spatially organized communities. More broadly, I aim to highlight how incorporating microscale heterogeneity into experimental ecology can uncover mechanisms that are difficult to capture in well-mixed systems.