Liberal Arts and Sciences
Birzu Lab
Led by Gabriel Birzu · Physics
What we study
The Birzu Lab studies how microbial diversity evolves and affects ecosystems using computational models and data analysis. They explore how spatial processes shape microbial communities and their responses to changes.
What working here is like
- Computational
- Reading, writing & theory
- No organisms (data only)
- Bacteria & microbes
- Coding required
- Project
- 1
- Papers
- 4
Current projects
Traveling waves for bacterial chemotaxis with growth
The lab creates math models to explain how bacteria move toward food and grow. Students will use equations to predict how fast bacteria drift and compare those predictions to computer simulations.
From the Spring 2025 UF Undergraduate Research Symposium · abstract book, p. 551
Summaries are written by AI in plain language from public symposium abstracts and may be imperfect.
Recent papers, explained
- Horizontal Gene Transfer and Recombination in Cyanobacteriota
2025 · Annual Review of Microbiology
Reviews how gene transfer works in cyanobacteria.
- Hybridization breaks species barriers in long-term coevolution of a cyanobacterial population
2025 · eLife
Shows how gene mixing happens in long-lived cyanobacteria species.
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- Inferring microbial co-occurrence networks from amplicon data: a systematic evaluation
2023 · mSystems
Tests how well tools predict microbial community networks.
- Genealogical structure changes as range expansions transition from pushed to pulled
2021 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Explains how gene trees change during population growth.
Plain-language summaries are AI-written and reviewed by us; check the paper for details.
How to reach out
Gabriel Birzu hasn't set up this page yet. You can also look them up in the UF directory (search “Gabriel Birzu”).