Dr Daniel Padfield is an ecologist who uses theory and experiments to understand how environmental change alters the interplay of ecological and evolutionary dynamics in microbial communities.

His current postdoctoral research in the lab of Michiel Vos focuses on investigating how adaptive radiations in bacteria happen in the natural environment.

Dan’s research seeks to understand how bacteria evolve, and under what abiotic conditions are rates of evolution and diversification fastest. To do this, he is using sequencing approaches and environmental sampling to look at the diversity of a focal bacterial group, Myxobacteria, across different habitats around Cornwall.

He is the bioinformatics and statistical lead on this project, and also provides statistical expertise to the wider lab group. He has >8 years of experience using the statistical programming language R and has authored several R packages. Dan is also currently interested in the potential links between antimicrobial resistance and climate change, with a specific interest in whether climate warming will worsen the problem of antibiotic resistance.