Katrin Bohl

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Theoretische Systembiologie
Leutragraben 1
D-07743 Jena
Germany
Phone: +49-3641-949596
Fax: +49-3641-946452
Room 15N07, Floor 15





Curriculum Vitae



Research Interests

Cooperation, mutualism and altruism are very common in nature. However, this cannot be explained by natural selection in the classical sense. Cooperative and altruistic behaviour would lower the fitness of the acting individual and hence evolution would select against it.

Therefore, I am interested in the following questions: How did cooperation evolve? Which ecological factors favour or inhibit the evolution of cooperation?

A further interesting aspect is the evolution of cheaters. Individuals which do not invest in the cooperation could exploit the cooperation of others. Do such individuals, called “cheaters”, evolve? If yes, are they able to cause the whole population to crash? What is the maximum percentage of cheaters for the population to be stable?

How will a population of cooperators react if one cheater immigrates?

To answer such questions, I am analysing a model system of cooperating bacteria using a cellular automaton, metabolic pathway analysis, evolutionary game theory and ordinary differential equations.



Further research projects at our group.



Cooperation



Teaching



Publications

Talks

Poster

* presenting author