David Sneddon

The paper examines the evolutionary history of IncP-1 plasmids, finding that their backbone genes predominantly evolve through vertical transmission rather than horizontal recombination.

This study shows that inactivating the upf31 gene in a plasmid improves its maintenance in E. coli by altering gene regulation, demonstrating how plasmid evolution can affect host range.

The paper uses phylogenomic analysis of 189 Methylobacterium genomes to reveal four evolutionary groups and identify 45 candidate species, highlighting phyllosphere diversity and an ancient transition to plant association.