Population genomics of murine Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus infects a broad range of hosts, including human, livestock and wild animals. It can colonize and infect both laboratory and wild mice, but there is much we ignore about adaptation to rdoent hosts. In this project we analyse a new whole genome sequence dataset from hundreds of S. aureus isolates from laboratory and wild rodents in 7 countries in order to reveal the population structure of these lineages and their relatedness to isolates found in other hosts, to reconstruct their evolutionary history, and to uncover molecular mechanisms for adaptation to these animal hosts.