The MyxoEE Vision

With focus on the fascinating biology of myxobacteria, MyxoEE research seeks to increase our understanding of how evolution works - especially the evolution of cooperation & conflict, motility, predator-prey interactions, multicellularity, development, morphology, complex life cycles and community-interaction networks in the microbial world. It also seeks to improve understanding of myxobacterial behaviors and their molecular foundations. Most MyxoEE research questions are fundamental, but use of MyxoEEs to potentially yield enhanced biocontrol agents is also explored.

Interacting with analysis of natural diversity, experimental ecology, molecular biology and theory, MyxoEEs study how myxobacterial traits and biotic interactions involving myxobacteria respond evolutionarily to controlled features of abiotic, social and community environments. As planned before MyxoEE-1, the abiotic and biotic complexity of MyxoEEs has increased over time. After LTEE-like evolution in a “simple” shaken-liquid environment in MyxoEE-1, more recent MyxoEEs have included multiple abiotic conditions, multiple behavioral aspects of the Myxococcus xanthus life cycle, manipulated social environments and multi-species communities that vary in predator and/or prey identities, species richness and trophic structure. 

More new MyxoEEs investigating exciting questions are waiting to be designed, performed and studied by many research teams.

myxoee.org is offered as a resource for researchers and the broader public with the goal of stimulating interest in evolutionary biology, microbial ecology, the myxobacteria, and new research projects.

Origins — MyxoEE research was initiated by Gregory Velicer in the 1990s while he was a PhD student in the lab group of Richard Lenski, an evolutionary biologist at Michigan State University. The first ideas for MyxoEE research arose during a seminar about M. xanthus biology given by Dale Kaiser of Stanford University that Greg attended at Michigan State in April 1994. Launch of MyxoEE research was enabled by strong support and wise advice from both Rich Lenski and Lee Kroos, a molecular geneticist at Michigan State studying developmental gene regulation in M. xanthus. Early MyxoEE research was enhanced by input and encouragement from members of the Lenski and Kroos labs and of the myxobacteria research community, including Martin Dworkin and Dale Kaiser. Growth of MyxoEE research has been fueled by stimulating interactions with and excellent work by group members and collaborators, as well as by financial support from various research institutions and funding agencies.