Abstract: Severe environmental change puts populations at risk of extinction. Escape from extinction through adaptive evolution is termed evolutionary rescue. In the context of conservation biology, successful adaptation is the desired outcome. In contrast, the evolution of drug resistance or vaccine escape constitute instances of undesired rescue. Since well-adapted variants, e.g., antibiotic- resistant bacteria, are initially often rare, the adaptive process is strongly influenced by stochasticity and the outcome – rescue or extinction — uncertain. To study rescue in the context of antibiotic resistance, models accounting for the population genetics of bacteria need to be developed. Furthermore, dynamics at different scales — the dynamics within and across hosts — are of relevance. In this talk, I first give a general introduction to models of evolutionary rescue, which are based on branching process theory to capture the stochasticity in the dynamics of rare genotypes. I then turn to models for the evolution of antibiotic resistance. I especially focus on the evolution of resistance on extra-chromosomal DNA elements that are present in many bacteria.

us02web.zoom.us/j/4082603129