Overview

My research aims to link the structure of ecological communities to ecosystem processes and to understand the impact of human stressors on these communities. I study the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by plasmids that can act as parasites or mutualists in microbial communities. This will reveal how enviromental antibiotic exposure changes the coveolutionary dymanics between plasmids and their bacterial hosts leading to changes in their interaction networks and consequently the risk of AMR spread. I further study the interplay of mutualistic and antagonistic, trophic and non-trophic (i.e. ecosystem engineering) interactions and how these are driving ecosystem stability.  

Qualifications

2008 PhD (University of Goettingen)

Career

2023- BBSRC Discovery Fellow and Lecturer in Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter

2013–2022 Research Fellow, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus
2011–2013 Assistant with independent research, University of Bern, Switzerland
2010–2011 Post-doctoral research fellow, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus
2009–2010 Post-doctoral research fellow, Imperial College London, Silwood Park

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Research

Research interests

My research explores the link between the structure of ecological communities, their stability and important processes. My research aims to understand the ecological consequences of human impact and species losses and how they are transmitted through the network of interacting species. Experiments are a powerful tool to test this impact as they demonstrate the actual community response to species loss. I have manipulated predator presence and abundance, predator functional diversity, and the presence of predators that also act as mutualists or ecosystem engineers in various field experiments. As model systems I use (i) aphids, their parasitoids and hyperparasitoids, and (ii) soil bacteria as hosts for plasmids.

Research projects

1. The spread of antimicrobial resistance in host plasmid networks - BBSRC Dicovery Fellowship                                AMR is rising to dangerously high levels causing a global health crisis. Plasmids, mobile genetic elements, have a crucial role in the spread of AMR. They can carry resistance against antibiotics and pass this on to bacteria. Antibiotics make such AMR carrying plasmids beneficial to their bacterial hosts. Therefore, antibiotic exposure will change coevolutionary dynamics between plasmids and their hosts, resulting in plasmids becoming more prevalent and associated with a higher number of different bacteria. This fundamentally changes the network structure of interacting bacteria and plasmids, and likely increases the spread of novel antibiotic resistance across microbial communities. With a series of experiments using simple and naturally complex microbial communities, I will determine the long-term impact of antibiotic exposure on plasmids and their bacterial hosts. I will also investigate emerging networks between plasmid and bacteria with novel methods. This experimental work in combination with theoretical approaches will help to predict the long-term impact of antibiotic pressure on the spread on antibiotic resistance across microbial communities and to pathogens. 

2. Vulnerability of ecological communities to extinction cascades 
Initial species losses are often followed by secondary extinctions of other species, for not always obvious reasons, with the danger that this leads to a cascade of further extinctions and ecosystem collapse. Predicting these cascades is challenging and requires a detailed understanding of how the interconnectedness of species in ecosystems affects the transmission of human impacts on one species to other species that are not directly linked to it. This is particularly important for species at higher trophic levels (carnivores) which are most vulnerable to extinction. The idea has long existed that species of carnivore that specialise on different prey have positive effects on each other by limiting their prey populations and thereby preventing one prey species from outcompeting the other. A consequence of this is that if a carnivore is lost from the community, its prey is released from control and may subsequently out-compete the other prey species leaving the other carnivore without food and facing extinction. This is potentially an important mechanism by which extinction cascades occur, however, it is difficult to obtain experimental evidence for such effects. We study these mechanisms in field experiments using aphid-parasitoid communities.

3. Integration of food webs and ecosystem engineering
Ecosystem engineering (the modification of the physical environment by organisms) is an important interaction in most ecosystems. When these engineers are trophically coupled to food webs as producers, consumers or decomposers, there is obviously the potential for trophic feedbacks to alter engineer density and engineering activity. This can then lead to a change in the degree to which the environment is modified, subsequent modification of trophic interactions affecting food webs dynamics and stability.

4. Interaction type drives network structure. Ecological communities exist as networks of interacting species, and the structure of these networks determine their stability and function. Observational studies suggest that network structure depends upon whether interactions between species are predominantly mutualistic or antagonistic, however the causality of this relationship remains unclear. I will use communities of bacteria and their symbiotic plasmids to experimentally determine how interaction type (mutualistic versus antagonistic) affects community network structure. The system is ideal to address these questions because bacteria-plasmid interactions can be switched from antagonistic to mutualistic through simple environmental manipulations (the addition of antibiotics to which the plasmids confer resistance), and changes in community network structure can be observed over a matter of weeks. The large-scale of this project is made possible by the application of a novel culture-free method, epicPCR, which allows high-throughput assessment of bacteria-plasmid associations. The predicted role of ecological stability, as well as novel eco-evolutionary mechanisms, underpinning the interaction type-network structure relationships will be assessed by a combination of phenotypic and genetic experiments complemented by theory.

Selected Publications

Risely, A., Newbury, A., Stalder, T., Simmons, B., Top, E., Buckling, A., Sanders, D. (2024) Host- plasmid network structure in wastewater is linked to antimicrobial resistance genes. Nature Communications 15, 555. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44827-w

Sanders, D., Frago, E., Kehoe, R. , Patterson, C., Gaston, K.J. (2021) A meta-analysis of biological impacts of artificial light at night. Nature Ecology Evolution 5, 74–81. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-01322-x

Sanders D., Kehoe, R., Cruse, D., van Veen F.J.F., Gaston, K.J. (2018) Low levels of artificial light at night strengthen top-down control in insect food web. Current Biology 28, Issue 15, 2474-2478. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218307462

Sanders, D.,Thébault,E., Kehoe, R., van Veen, F.J.F. (2018) Trophic redundancy reduces vulnerability to extinction cascades. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (10) 2419-2424; https://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/2419.short

Sanders, D., Kehoe, R., van Veen, F.J.F., McLean, A., Godfray, H.C.J, Dicke, M., Gols, R., Frago, E. (2016) Protective insect symbiont leads to cascading extinctions and community collapse. Ecology Letters 19. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12616/full

Sanders D., Kehoe, R., van Veen F.J.F. (2015) Experimental evidence for the population-dynamic mechanisms underlying extinction cascades of carnivores. Current Biology 25, Issue 23, 3106–3109. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215012452

Sanders D., Sutter, L., van Veen F.J.F. (2013) The loss of indirect interactions leads to cascading extinctions of carnivores. Ecology Letters, doi: 10.1111/ele.12096 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12096/full

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Publications

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