Question: You said that you used maths for reasearch. How would maths discover the difference? Also what subjects do you use?

Claire El Mouden answered on 19 Jun 2013:

Hiya,

I use maths to help me understand how evolution might work. For example I might ask myself whether a particular mutation could spread over time. So to do that, I can make a model, where I imagine individuals are living in a world, maybe in groups and they move between groups with a certain probability, and die with a certain probability. I then imagine this mutant that performs a slightly different behaviour (e.g. it uses some of its energy to help another member of the group). I then look at whether such a behaviour could evolve in different environments by seeing how the fitness (probability of reproducing) changes for the mutant and non-mutant.

The benefit of making models like this is that you can then make testable predictions that help people studying species in the real world. For example, last year I made a model for some people who were interested in the effect of industrial agricultural practices on plant growth. Many plants form mutualistic relationship with fungi, who bring nutrients to their roots and in return the plant gives the fungi products from photosynthesis. The question they had was ‘How might industrial agriculture (where the soil gets moved around a lot more) affect this relationship?’

I looked at this question, and showed that if the relationship between the plant and fungi kept on being disturbed, then it would favour the spread of mutant fungi that were less helpful to the plant. For the plant this would mean less nutrients, which means more expense for the farmer as they need to give the plants more chemical fertiliser to compensate. The scientists tested this idea by growing lots of plants in pots, and disturbing the soil in some, and leaving others and showed that my model prediction was right!