Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a substantial threat to human health. The widespread
prevalence of AMR is, in part, due to the horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes …

Antibiotics are powerful drugs used in the treatment of bacterial infections. The inappropriate
use of these medicines has driven the dissemination of antibiotic resistance (AR) in most …

The'plasmid paradox'arises because, although plasmids are common features of bacterial
genomes, theoretically they should not exist: rates of conjugation were believed insufficient …

Plasmid acquisition is an important mechanism of rapid adaptation and niche expansion in
prokaryotes. Positive selection for plasmid-coded functions is a major driver of plasmid …

Rhizobia are one of the most important and best studied groups of bacterial symbionts. They
are defined by their ability to establish nitrogen-fixing intracellular infections within plant …

Extra-chromosomal genetic elements are important drivers of bacterial evolution, and their
evolutionary success depends on positive selection for the genes they encode. Examples …

It is difficult to understand plasmid maintenance in the absence of selection and theoretical
models predict the conditions for plasmid persistence to be limited. Plasmid-associated …

The persistence of plasmids in bacterial populations represents a puzzling evolutionary
problem with serious clinical implications due to their role in the ongoing antibiotic …

The evolutionary pressures that determine the location (chromosomal or plasmid-borne) of
bacterial genes are not fully understood. We investigate these pressures through …

Plasmids are the main vector by which antibiotic resistance is transferred between bacterial
cells within surface-associated communities. In this study, we ask whether there is an …