Prof. Luo Haiwei from Chinese University of Hong Kong paid a visit to IHB on March 14, 2019.  

Prof. Luo Haiwei from Chinese University of Hong Kong paid a visit to Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of Chinese Academy of Sciences on March 14, 2019. During his visit, he gave an academic presentation entitled “Cryptic Speciation in a drop of water” to IHB researchers and graduate students.    

Prof. Luo introduced the micro-evolution story in a drop of water at the beginning of his presentation, and introduced the recessive species differentiation process of the same 16S bacterial Aspergillus Roseeobacter in a drop of seawater.    

By comparing with the Marinobacterium population isolated from the sample, the hypothesis that the Roseobacter is undergoing species differentiation was proposed. His study found that the lower diversity of the bacterium is actually more differentiated. Further analysis revealed that SNP loci driving species differentiation were concentrated in two regions of the relative concentration of the core genome of Rhodococcus.    

Prof. Luo's team demonstrated the important role of these SNPs in the multi-species differentiation of E. aurantium through multiple experiments. IHB’s participants discussed the microbial evolution issues with Prof. Luo after his presentation.     

Luo Haiwei is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Life Sciences at Chinese University of Hong Kong, and an associate editor of Frontiers in Microbiology and Frontiers in Marine Science. His main research interest is to combine modern biotechnology (such as genomics) to understand the evolution and adaptability of microorganisms in the ocean. Related academic results were published in journals such as Nature Microbiology, The ISME Journal, and Molecular Biology and Evolution.