S. Pande

Mass lysis of bacterial predators drives the enrichment of antibiotic resistance in soil microbial communities

The paper shows that introducing Myxococcus xanthus in soil increases antibiotic resistance by lysing cells, creating a toxic environment that favors resistant bacteria.

Differential evolution of cooperative traits in aggregative multicellular bacterium Myxococcus xanthus driven by varied population bottleneck sizes

This study shows that varying population bottleneck sizes in Myxococcus xanthus influence the evolution of cooperative traits, with stringent bottlenecks favoring fruiting body formation and growth while relaxed bottlenecks enhance overall fitness.

Mixing selects for predation resistance in lab-evolved communities of bacterial prey and social predator Myxococcus xanthus

This study shows that repeated mixing in predator-prey communities increases prey resistance to predation but does not affect predator efficiency.

Widespread density dependence of bacterial growth under acid stress

The paper tests for positive density dependence of growth under acid stress in five bacterial species and finds the Allee effect in all, with different mechanisms across species.

Nanotube-mediated cross-feeding couples the metabolism of interacting bacterial cells

The paper shows that auxotrophic E. coli cells increase amino acid production when co-cultured with prototrophic donors via nanotubes, due to cytoplasmic amino acid depletion delaying feedback inhibition.