Dr Ellie Harrison
School of Biosciences
NERC Independent Research Fellow
- Profile
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- Independent P3 Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, UK (2017‒present)
- ERC Postdoctoral Research Assistant on the ‘Coevolution of bacteria and conjugative plasmids’ at the University of York, UK (2012–2017)
- NERC Postdoctoral Research Assistant on ‘Host-symbiont coevolution: exploring the parasitism-mutualism continuum’ in the Institute for Integrative Biology at the University of Liverpool, UK (2010–2012)
- PhD ‘Evolution of a Selfish Genetic Element: The 2 Micron Plasmid of Saccharomyces spp.’ at the NERC Centre for Population Biology at Imperial College, London, UK (2006–2010)
- Research interests
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I am interested in the ecology and evolution of microbial communities, particularly in the interactions between bacteria and the mobile genetic elements that infect them. Elements such as plasmids and phages play key roles in these communities; acting not only as agents of horizontal gene transfer by carrying with them bacterial genes when they move between hosts, but also as parasites as they exploit their bacterial hosts for their own replication.
In my work I explore how coevolution shapes these interactions and how they, in turn, impact the wider community.
- Publications
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Featured publications
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All publications
Journal articles
- Biological nitrogen fixation by soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.), a novel, high protein crop in Scotland, requires inoculation with non-native bradyrhizobia. Frontiers in Agronomy, 5.
- Compensatory mutations reducing the fitness cost of plasmid carriage occur in plant rhizosphere communities. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 99(4).
- Plasmids manipulate bacterial behaviour through translational regulatory crosstalk. PLoS Biology, 21(2).
- Horizontal gene transfer and ecological interactions jointly control microbiome stability. PLoS Biology, 20(11), e3001847-e3001847.
- Why are rhizobial symbiosis genes mobile?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1842).
- Introduction: the secret lives of microbial mobile genetic elements. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1842).
- Why do plasmids manipulate the expression of bacterial phenotypes?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1842).
- Ecological and evolutionary solutions to the plasmid paradox. Trends in Microbiology.
- Introducing a novel, broad host range temperate phage family infecting Rhizobium leguminosarum and beyond. Frontiers in Microbiology, 12(11). View this article in WRRO
- Plasmid fitness costs are caused by specific genetic conflicts enabling resolution by compensatory mutation. PLoS Biology, 19(10).
- The dilution effect limits plasmid horizontal transmission in multispecies bacterial communities. Microbiology, 167(9).
- Genetic variation is associated with differences in facilitative and competitive interactions in the Rhizobium leguminosarum species complex. Environmental Microbiology. View this article in WRRO
- Positive selection inhibits plasmid coexistence in bacterial genomes. mBio, 12(3).
- The impact of intra-specific diversity in the rhizobia-legume symbiosis. Microbiology, 167(4).
- The impact of mercury selection and conjugative genetic elements on community structure and resistance gene transfer. Frontiers in Microbiology, 11.
- The ecology and evolution of pangenomes. Current Biology, 29(20), R1094-R1103. View this article in WRRO
- Extremely fast amelioration of plasmid fitness costs by multiple functionally diverse pathways. Microbiology. View this article in WRRO
- Assessing evolutionary risks of resistance for new antimicrobial therapies. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3(4), 515-517. View this article in WRRO
- Mobile Compensatory Mutations Promote Plasmid Survival. mSystems, 4(1). View this article in WRRO
- Competitive species interactions constrain abiotic adaptation in a bacterial soil community. Evolution Letters, 2(6), 580-589. View this article in WRRO
- Migration promotes plasmid stability under spatially heterogeneous positive selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, 285. View this article in WRRO
- Plasmid stability is enhanced by higher-frequency pulses of positive selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences. View this article in WRRO
- Variable plasmid fitness effects and mobile genetic element dynamics across Pseudomonas species. Fems Microbiology Ecology, 94(1). View this article in WRRO
- Sampling the mobile gene pool: innovation via horizontal gene transfer in bacteria.. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci, 372(1735).
- Ecological and Evolutionary Benefits of Temperate Phage: What Does or Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger. BioEssays, 39(12). View this article in WRRO
- Positive selection inhibits gene mobilization and transfer in soil bacterial communities. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1, 1348-1353. View this article in WRRO
- The evolution of plasmid stability: Are infectious transmission and compensatory evolution competing evolutionary trajectories?. Plasmid, 91, 90-95. View this article in WRRO
- Conflicting selection alters the trajectory of molecular evolution in a tripartite bacteria–plasmid–phage interaction. Molecular Ecology, 26(10), 2757-2764. View this article in WRRO
- Gene mobility promotes the spread of resistance in bacterial populations. ISME Journal. View this article in WRRO
- Bacterial evolution: Resistance is a numbers game. Nature Microbiology. View this article in WRRO
- Ecological conditions determine extinction risk in co-evolving bacteria-phage populations. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 16(1), 227-227. View this article in WRRO
- Multi-host environments select for host-generalist conjugative plasmids. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 16(1). View this article in WRRO
- Source–sink plasmid transfer dynamics maintain gene mobility in soil bacterial communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(29), 8260-8265. View this article in WRRO
- Rapid compensatory evolution promotes the survival of conjugative plasmids. Mobile Genetic Elements, 6(3). View this article in WRRO
- Environmentally co-occurring mercury resistance plasmids are genetically and phenotypically diverse and confer variable context-dependent fitness effects. Environmental Microbiology, 17(12), 5008-5022. View this article in WRRO
- Parallel Compensatory Evolution Stabilizes Plasmids across the Parasitism-Mutualism Continuum. Current Biology, 25(15), 2034-2039. View this article in WRRO
- Polylysogeny magnifies competitiveness of a bacterial pathogenin vivo. Evolutionary Applications, 8(4), 346-351.
- Plasmid carriage can limit bacteria–phage coevolution. Biology Letters, 11(8), 20150361-20150361.
- Sex drives intracellular conflict in yeast. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 27(8), 1757-1763.
- Rapidly fluctuating environments constrain coevolutionary arms races by impeding selective sweeps. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1764). View this article in WRRO
- Viral host-adaptation: insights from evolution experiments with phages. Current Opinion in Virology, 3(5), 572-577.
- The cost of copy number in a selfish genetic element: the 2-μmplasmid ofSaccharomyces cerevisiae. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 25(11), 2348-2356.
- Plasmid-mediated horizontal gene transfer is a coevolutionary process. Trends in Microbiology, 20(6), 262-267.
- Bacteriophages Limit the Existence Conditions for Conjugative Plasmids. mBio, 6(3). View this article in WRRO
Preprints
- Superiority of chromosomal compared to plasmid-encoded compensatory mutations, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Compensatory mutations reducing the fitness cost of plasmid carriage occur in plant rhizosphere communities, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Plasmid manipulation of bacterial behaviour through translational regulatory crosstalk, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Horizontal gene transfer increases microbiome stability, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- The dilution effect limits plasmid horizontal transmission in multispecies bacterial communities, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Plasmid fitness costs are caused by specific genetic conflicts, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Positive selection inhibits plasmid coexistence in bacterial genomes, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Biological nitrogen fixation by soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.), a novel, high protein crop in Scotland, requires inoculation with non-native bradyrhizobia. Frontiers in Agronomy, 5.