Elected to Membership

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Fellowship

Convergence and divergence in a long-term experiment with bacteria

Specificity of genome evolution in experimental populations of Escherichia coli evolved at different temperatures

Genome evolution and adaptation in a long-term experiment with Escherichia coli

Evolution experiments with microorganisms: the dynamics and genetic bases of adaptation

Long-term experimental evolution in Escherichia coli. I. Adaptation and divergence during 2,000 generations

Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for more than 150 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

Michigan State University

The main focus of my lab is on experimental evolution. Evolution is usually investigated using the comparative method or by studying fossils. Our approach is to watch evolution as it happens, in the context of experiments that are replicated and performed under controlled conditions. The idea of watching evolution in action is not new. In fact, Charles Darwin, in the first edition of On the Origin of Species (1859, p. 187), said "In looking for the gradations by which an organ in any species has been perfected, we ought to look exclusively to its lineal ancestors ; but this is scarcely ever possible, and we are forced in each case to look to species of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from the same original parent-form."

In order to study evolution as it happens requires either a time machine (which we don't have) or else organisms that replicate, mutate, and evolve very fast, so that we can detect changes on a reasonable time scale. In our research, we are now performing experiments with two different fast-evolving systems:

Bacteria, primarily Escherichia coli; and Digital organisms in the Avida system. In both systems, we are investigating the dynamics of evolution, including genomic as well as phenotypic changes. We aim to integrate our understanding of these genomic and phenotypic changes by identifying and manipulating the genetic and ecological determinants of organismal performance and fitness. The approaches we use to draw these connections span a wide range, from finding specific mutations of interest to analyzing arrays that summarize the relationship between the entire genome and all the phenotypes that it encodes. By using two very different systems, we seek commonalities that may indicate more general features of evolving systems. Of equal interest, major differences between these systems may lead us to further experiments that explore the reasons for particular outcomes.

Experimental Evolution

Bacteria

Digital Organisms

Dynamics of Evolution

Microbiology

Personal Website

Telliamed Revisited

Google Scholar

MSU's Richard Lenski Wins 2017 Friend of Darwin Award

Evolution: Revenge of the Hopeful Monster

Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Richard Dawkins & Lalla Ward reading from Chapter 5 "Before Our Very Eyes" of Dawkins' 2009 book "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution".

Scientist Richard Dawkins provides evidence for the fact of evolution by describing Richard E. Lenski's  over 54,000 generations (as of February 2012) of e. coli evolution experiment which has been ongoing since 1988: where evolution is directly observed, where new information enters genomes, where natural selections puts together combinations of genes, where the creationists' central dogma of irreducible complexity is undermined. 

This is part 1 of 3.

Richard Lindski's experimental evolution site: http://myxo.css.msu.edu/index.html
NSF Article: http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=119814&org=NSF
Amazon Book link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416594787/

Evolution Observed In the Lab - Richard Dawkins (1/3)

Richard Lenski at the FQXi SETTING TIME ARIGHT conference, an interdisciplinary meeting investigating the nature of time.

Richard Lenski on LIFE

Richard Lenski discusses how he has been surprised by evolution.

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For more on Lenski's work on long-term evolution, read the full article on Quanta Magazine's website: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161103-richard-lenski-interview-evolution/. Video by Logan Zillmer for Quanta Magazine.

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