Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Evolutionary coexistence in a fluctuating environment by specialization on resource level

View ORCID ProfileMeike T. Wortel
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.18.444718
Meike T. Wortel
1Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Food Safety, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Meike T. Wortel
  • For correspondence: meike.t.wortel@gmail.com
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Microbial communities in fluctuating environments can contain many species and diversity within species, both in natural environments such as the human gut, and in laboratory settings when communities are propagated for a long time. Whether this diversity is at the species level, within the species level, or a combination of both, the question remains: what processes lead to the origination and maintenance of this diversity?

When nutrient levels fluctuate over time, one possibly relevant process is that different types specialize on low and high nutrient levels. The relevance of this process is supported by observations of types co-existing through this mechanism when put together in the laboratory, and by simple models, that show that negative frequency dependence of two types, specialized on low and high resource level, can stabilize coexistence. However, when microbial populations are in an environment for a long time, they evolve. In this article we determine what happens when species can evolve; whether branching can occur to create diversity and whether evolution will destabilize coexistence.

We find that for the trade-off data between growth at low and high substrate concentrations, available for the bacterium Escherichia coli and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae on glucose, there is only a small portion of the trait-space that allows for coexistence. Moreover, this coexistence is destabilized by evolution, and the only evolutionary stable outcome is a single type. When we combine two species that are well-adapted on their own, we do find that they can form an evolutionary singular coalition, i.e. a coexistence that is evolutionarily stable. We conclude that although specialization on resource level can support diversity within a species, it is likely not a cause by itself. In contrast, for species consortia this specialization can lead to evolutionarily stable coexistence.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • ↵* m.t.wortel{at}uva.nl

  • Improved clarity of the text and figures and additional figures and explanation in the Appendix.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted September 02, 2021.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Evolutionary coexistence in a fluctuating environment by specialization on resource level
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Evolutionary coexistence in a fluctuating environment by specialization on resource level
Meike T. Wortel
bioRxiv 2021.05.18.444718; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.18.444718
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Evolutionary coexistence in a fluctuating environment by specialization on resource level
Meike T. Wortel
bioRxiv 2021.05.18.444718; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.18.444718

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Microbiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4377)
  • Biochemistry (9568)
  • Bioengineering (7080)
  • Bioinformatics (24813)
  • Biophysics (12586)
  • Cancer Biology (9932)
  • Cell Biology (14308)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7940)
  • Ecology (12090)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15971)
  • Genetics (10911)
  • Genomics (14721)
  • Immunology (9856)
  • Microbiology (23611)
  • Molecular Biology (9468)
  • Neuroscience (50790)
  • Paleontology (369)
  • Pathology (1537)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2676)
  • Physiology (4004)
  • Plant Biology (8651)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1507)
  • Synthetic Biology (2388)
  • Systems Biology (6419)
  • Zoology (1345)