Project description

Our 'work-horse' model organism is the nematode Pristionchus pacificus, which develops one of two possible mouth forms in adults, depending on conditions experienced as juveniles: a narrow stenostomatous morph with one denticle, or a wide eurystomatous morph with two "teeth". Stenostomatous morphs are obligate bacteriavores, while the eurystomatous morph can predate on other nematodes. In nature the developmental decision is effected by adult pheromones (Bose et al., 2012, Werner et al. 2018), while in the lab we can utilize simple culture conditions to modulate mouth form preference (Werner et al. 2017).