Reich Lab

Living systems adapt to changing environments through transitions between states. Across cellular, organismal, and ecological levels, adaptation emerges from the interplay between variability, environmental constraints, and feedback. In different systems, this involves stochastic exploration and feedback-driven stabilisation, the rewiring of existing regulatory programmes, or the emergence of structured communities, implemented through genetic and epigenetic regulation as well as dynamic redistribution of cellular resources.

We study these principles across yeast populations, resurrection plants, and plant-soil microbiomes, spanning distinct strategies and levels of complexity, from isogenic populations to multicellular organisms and diverse multispecies communities. Together, these systems allow us to connect short-term responses, large-scale state transitions, and community-level organisation within a unified framework.