Associate Professor Jan Engelstaedter
Associate Professor
School of Biological Sciences
+61 7 336 57959
Primary research interest
- Evolutionary genetics, mathematical modeling
Researcher biography
I am broadly interested in the evolutionary biology of sexual processes, parasitism, and the interplay between these phenomena. Most of my work involves mathematical models, but I also do experimental and field work. Currently, my research focuses on the following topics:
- Reproductive parasites. These parasites, which include the famous bacterium Wolbachia, infect many insect species and manipulate the reproduction of their hosts in fascinating ways.
- Recombination in bacteria. Bacteria reproduce clonally, but many still exchange genes with other bacteria, for example through plasmids or the uptake of free DNA from the environment. I'm especially interested in how recombination can affect the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
- Host-parasite coevolution. Hosts and parasites interact in an antagonistic manner, which may produce interesting coevolutionary dynamics. I am also scrutinizing the Red Queen hypothesis, which posits that host-parasite coevolution can produce selection for recombination and sexual reproduction.
- Parthenogenesis in animals. Although most animals reproduce sexually, some species have given up sex and consist of asexually reproducing females only. I am interested in the factors that enhance or inhibit the evolution of such parthenogenetic species and on their long-term evolutionary fate.
http://engelstaedterlab.org/
Journal Articles
Meirmans, Stephanie, Butlin, Roger K., Charmantier, Anne, Engelstädter, Jan, Groot, Astrid T., King, Kayla C., Kokko, Hanna, Reid, Jane M. and Neiman, Maurine (2019) Science policies: how should science funding be allocated? An evolutionary biologists’ perspective. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 32 8: 754-768. doi:10.1111/jeb.13497
Engelstädter, Jan and Fortuna, Nicole Z. (2019) The dynamics of preferential host switching: host phylogeny as a key predictor of parasite distribution. Evolution, 73 7: 1330-1340. doi:10.1111/evo.13716
Smith, Nicholas M. A., Wade, Claire, Allsopp, Michael H., Harpur, Brock A., Zayed, Amro, Rose, Stephen A., Engelstädter, Jan, Chapman, Nadine C., Yagound, Boris and Oldroyd, Benjamin P. (2018) Strikingly high levels of heterozygosity despite 20 years of inbreeding in a clonal honey bee. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 32 2: 144-152. doi:10.1111/jeb.13397
Allen, Richard C., Engelstädter, Jan, Bonhoeffer, Sebastian, McDonald, Bruce A. and Hall, Alex R. (2017) Reversing resistance: Different routes and common themes across pathogens. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284 1863: 1-10. doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1619
Engelstaedter, Jan (2017) Asexual but not clonal: evolutionary processes in automictic populations. Genetics, 206 2: 993-1009. doi:10.1534/genetics.116.196873
Reeve, James, Ortiz-Barrientos, Daniel and Engelstädter, Jan (2016) The evolution of recombination rates in finite populations during ecological speciation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London - B - Biological Sciences, 283 1841: . doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.1243
Ambur, Ole Herman, Engelstaedter, Jan, Johnsen, Pal J., Miller, Eric L. and Rozen, Daniel E. (2016) Steady at the wheel: conservative sex and the benefits of bacterial transformation. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, 371 1706: 20150528. doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0528
Lenormand, Thomas, Engelstaedter, Jan, Johnston, Susan E., Wijnker, Erik and Haag, Christoph R. (2016) Evolutionary mysteries in meiosis. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, 371 1706: . doi:10.1098/rstb.2016.0001
Engelstadter, Jan, Harms, Klaus and Johnsen, Pal J. (2016) The evolutionary dynamics of integrons in changing environments. ISME Journal, 10 6: 1296-1307. doi:10.1038/ismej.2015.222
Ortiz-Barrientos, Daniel, Engelstaedter, Jan and Rieseberg, Loren H. (2016) Recombination rate evolution and the origin of species. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 31 3: 226-236. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2015.12.016
zur Wiesch, Pia Abel, Abel, Soeren, Gkotzis, Spyridon, Ocampo, Paolo, Engelstaedter, Jan, Hinkley, Trevor, Magnus, Carsten, Waldor, Matthew K., Udekwu, Klas and Cohen, Ted (2015) Classic reaction kinetics can explain complex patterns of antibiotic action. Science Translational Medicine, 7 287: 287ra73-287ra73. doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aaa8760
Engelstaedter, Jan (2015) Host-parasite coevolutionary dynamics with generalized success/failure infection genetics. The American Naturalist, 185 5: E117-E129. doi:10.1086/680476
Moradigaravand, Danesh and Engelstädter, Jan (2014) The impact of natural transformation on adaptation in spatially structured bacterial populations. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 14 1: 1-9. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-14-141
Engelstädter, Jan (2014) Fitness landscapes emerging from pharmacodynamic functions in the evolution of multidrug resistance. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 27 5: 840-853. doi:10.1111/jeb.12355
Pessia, Eugénie, Engelstaedter, Jan and Marais, Gabriel A. B. (2014) The evolution of X chromosome inactivation in mammals: the demise of Ohno's hypothesis?. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 71 8: 1383-1394. doi:10.1007/s00018-013-1499-6
Moradigaravand, Danesh, Kouyos, Roger, Hinkley, Trevor, Haddad, Mojgan, Petropoulos, Christos J., Engelstadter, Jan and Bonhoeffer, Sebastian (2014) Recombination accelerates adaptation on a large-scale empirical fitness landscape in HIV-1. PLoS Genetics, 10 6: e1004439.1-e1004439.8. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004439
Engelstädter, Jan and Moradigaravand, Danesh (2013) Adaptation through genetic time travel? Fluctuating selection can drive the evolution of bacterial transformation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281 1775: . doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.2609
Moradigaravand, Danesh and Engelstädter, Jan (2013) The evolution of natural competence: disentangling costs and benefits of sex in bacteria. American Naturalist, 182 4: E112-E126. doi:10.1086/671909
Nor, Igor, Engelstaedter, Jan, Duron, Olivier, Reuter, Max, Sagot, Marie-France and Charlat, Sylvain (2013) On the genetic architecture of cytoplasmic incompatibility: inference from phenotypic data. American Naturalist, 182 1: E15-E24. doi:10.1086/670612
Farkas, Jozsef Z., Hinow, Peter and Engelstaedter, Jan (2012) Pathogen evolution in switching environments: a hybrid dynamical system approach. Mathematical Biosciences, 240 1: 70-75. doi:10.1016/j.mbs.2012.06.004
Moradigaravand, Danesh and Engelstaedter, Jan (2012) The effect of bacterial recombination on adaptation on fitness landscapes with limited peak accessibility. Plos Computational Biology, 8 10: 1002735-1-1002735-10. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002735
Mostowy, R. and Engelstaedter, J. (2012) Host-parasite coevolution induces selection for condition-dependent sex. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 25 10: 2033-2046. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2012.02584.x
Zhang, Hui, Guillaume, Frederic and Engelstaedter, Jan (2012) The dynamics of mitochondrial mutations causing male infertility in spatially structured populations. Evolution, 66 10: 3179-3188. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01675.x
Kwiatkowski, Marek, Engelstaedter, Jan and Vorburger, Christoph (2012) On genetic specificity in symbiont-mediated host-parasite coevolution. Plos Computational Biology, 8 8: 1002633-1-1002633-9. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002633
Mostowy, Rafal, Engelstaedter, Jan and Salathe, Marcel (2012) Non-genetic inheritance and the patterns of antagonistic coevolution. Bmc Evolutionary Biology, 12 93: 1-10. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-12-93
Nor, Igor, Hermelin, Danny, Charlat, Sylvain, Engelstädter, Jan, Reuter, Max, Duron, Olivier and Sagot, Marie-France (2012) Mod/Resc parsimony inference: theory and application. Information and Computation, 213 23-32. doi:10.1016/j.ic.2011.03.008
Mostowy, Rafal and Engelstaedter, Jan (2011) The impact of environmental change on host-parasite coevolutionary dynamics. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 278 1716: 2283-2292. doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2359
zur Wiesch, Pia Abel, Kouyos, Roger, Engelstaedter, Jan, Regoes, Roland R. and Bonhoeffer, Sebastian (2011) Population biological principles of drug-resistance evolution in infectious diseases. Lancet Infectious Diseases, 11 3: 236-247. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(10)70264-4
Engelstaedter, Jan, Sandrock, Christoph and Vorburger, Christoph (2011) Contagious parthenogenesis, automixis, and a sex determination meltdown. Evolution, 65 2: 501-511. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.01145.x
Engelstaedter, Jan (2010) The effective size of populations infected with cytoplasmic sex-ratio distorters. Genetics, 186 1: 309-320. doi:10.1534/genetics.110.120014
zur Wiesch, Pia Schulz, Engelstaedter, Jan and Bonhoeffer, Sebastian (2010) Compensation of fitness costs and reversibility of antibiotic resistance mutations. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 54 5: 2085-2095. doi:10.1128/AAC.01460-09
Hornett, E. A., Engelstaedter, J. and Hurst, G. D. D. (2010) Hidden cytoplasmic incompatibility alters the dynamics of male-killer/host interactions. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 23 3: 479-487. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01872.x
Engelstaedter, J. and Telschow, A. (2009) Cytoplasmic incompatibility and host population structure. Heredity, 103 3: 196-207. doi:10.1038/hdy.2009.53
Engelstaedter, Jan and Bonhoeffer, Sebastian (2009) Red queen dynamics with non-standard fitness interactions. PLoS Computational Biology, 5 8: e1000469.1-e1000469.11. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000469
Engelstaedter, Jan and Hurst, Gregory D. D. (2009) What use are male hosts? The dynamics of maternally inherited bacteria showing sexual transmission or male killing. American Naturalist, 173 5: E159-E170. doi:10.1086/597375
Engelstaedter, Jan and Hurst, Gregory D. D. (2009) The ecology and evolution of microbes that manipulate host reproduction. Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics, 40 127-149. doi:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.110308.120206
Engelstaedter, Jan (2008) Constraints on the evolution of asexual reproduction. BioEssays, 30 11-12: 1138-1150. doi:10.1002/bies.20833
Engelstaedter, Jan (2008) Muller's ratchet and the degeneration of Y chromosomes: A simulation study. Genetics, 180 2: 957-967. doi:10.1534/genetics.108.092379
Engelstaedter, Jan and Haig, David (2008) Sexual antagonism and the evolution of X chromosome inactivation. Evolution, 62 8: 2097-2104. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00431.x
Duron, Olivier, Bouchon, Didier, Boutin, Sebastien, Bellamy, Lawrence, Zhou, Liqin, Engelstaedter, Jan and Hurst, Gregory D. (2008) The diversity of reproductive parasites among arthropods: Wolbachia do not walk alone. BMC Biology, 6 27.1-27.12. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-6-27
Reuter, Max, Engelstädter, Jan, Fontanillas, Pierre and Hurst, Laurence D. (2008) A test of the null model for 5 ' UTR evolution based on GC content. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 25 5: 801-804. doi:10.1093/molbev/msn044
Duron, Olivier, Hurst, Gregory D. D., Hornett, Emily A., Josling, James A. and Engelstaedter, Jan (2008) High incidence of the maternally inherited bacterium Cardinium in spiders. Molecular Ecology, 17 6: 1427-1437. doi:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2008.03689.x
Engelstaedter, Jan, Telschow, Arndt and Yamamura, Norio (2008) Coexistence of cytoplasmic incompatibility and male-killing-inducing endosymbionts, and their impact on host gene flow. Theoretical Population Biology, 73 1: 125-133. doi:10.1016/j.tpb.2007.08.004
Engelstaedter, J., Hammerstein, P. and Hurst, G. D. D. (2007) The evolution of endosymbiont density in doubly infected host species. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 20 2: 685-695. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01257.x
Engelstaedter, Jan and Hurst, Gregory D. D. (2007) The impact of male-killing bacteria on host evolutionary processes. Genetics, 175 1: 245-254. doi:10.1534/genetics.106.060921
Charlat, Sylvain, Engelstädter, Jan, Dyson, Emily A., Hornett, Emily A., Duplouy, Anne, Tortosa, Pablo, Davies, Neil, Roderick, George K., Wedell, Nina and Hurst, Gregory D. D. (2006) Competing Selfish Genetic Elements in the Butterfly Hypolimnas bolina. Current Biology, 16 24: 2453-2458. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2006.10.062
Engelstädter, Jan and Hurst, Gregory D. D. (2006) The dynamics of parasite incidence across host species. Evolutionary Ecology, 20 6: 603-616. doi:10.1007/s10682-006-9120-1
Telschow, A., Engelstädter, J., Yamamura, N., Hammerstein, P. and Hurst, G. D. D. (2006) Asymmetric gene flow and constraints on adaptation caused by sex ratio distorters. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 19 3: 869-878. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2005.01049.x
Engelstadter, Jan, Charlat, Sylvain, Pomiankowski, Andrew and Hurst, Gregory D. D. (2006) The evolution of cytoplasmic incompatibility types: Integrating segregation inbreeding and outbreeding. Genetics, 172 4: 2601-2611. doi:10.1534/genetics.105.050102
Engelstädter, Jan and Charlat, Sylvain (2006) Outbreeding selects for spiteful cytoplasmic elements. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 273 1589: 923-929. doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3411
Engelstädter, J. and Hurst, G. D. D. (2006) Can maternally transmitted endosymbionts facilitate the evolution of haplodiploidy?. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 19 1: 194-202. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2005.00974.x
Engelstädter, Jan, Telschow, Arndt and Hammerstein, Peter (2004) Infection dynamics of different Wolbachia-types within one host population. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 231 3: 345-355. doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2004.06.029
Engelstädter, Jan, Montenegro, Horacio and Hurst, Gregory D. D. (2004) To what extent do different types of sex ratio distorters interfere?. Evolution, 58 10: 2382-2386. doi:10.1554/04-294
Conference Paper
Nor, Igor, Hermelin, Danny, Charlat, Sylvain, Engelstädter, Jan, Reuter, Max, Duron, Olivier and Sagot, Marie-France (2010). Mod/Resc Parsimony Inference. In: Amihood Amir and Laxmi Parida, Combinatorial Pattern Matching: 21st Annual Symposium proceedings. 21st Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching, Brooklyn, NY, United States, (202-213). 21-23 June 2010. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-13509-5_19