Daniel Schäfer

TL;DR: It is discovered that general adaptation to biofilm lifestyle leads to an increase in phenotypical heterogeneity of eps expression, however, prolonged exposure to EPS-deficient cheaters may result in different adaptive strategy, where epsexpression increases uniformly within the population.

TL;DR: It is shown that biofilms are structurally heterogeneous and can be separated into strongly and weakly associated clusters and revealed that spatiotemporal changes in structural heterogeneity correlate with matrix gene expression, with TasA playing a key role in biofilm integrity and timing of development.

TL;DR: It is shown that biofilms are structurally heterogeneous and can be separated into strongly and weakly associated clusters, and that spatiotemporal changes in structural heterogeneity correlate with matrix gene expression, with TasA playing a key role in biofilm integrity and timing of development.

TL;DR: In this paper, the long-term dynamics between EPS producers and non-producers in Bacillus subtilis biofilms and track changes in phenotypic heterogeneity of matrix production within the populations of co-operators.

TL;DR: It is shown that evolution of matrix-producing cells (cooperators) in the presence of non-producers (cheaters) leads to a cheating strategy that allows cheaters to benefit from cooperators, that subsequently result to population tragedy.