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Social Motility: Interaction between two sessile soil bacteria leads to emergence of surface motility

Lucy M McCully, Adam S Bitzer, Sarah C Seaton, Leah M Smith, Mark W Silby
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/296814
Lucy M McCully
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth;
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  • For correspondence: lucy.m.mccully@gmail.com
Adam S Bitzer
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth;
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Sarah C Seaton
University of North Carolina Asheville
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Leah M Smith
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth;
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Mark W Silby
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth;
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Abstract

Bacteria often live in complex communities in which they interact with other organisms. Consideration of the social environment of bacteria can reveal emergent traits and behaviors that would be overlooked by studying bacteria in isolation. Here we characterize a social trait which emerges upon interaction between the distantly-related soil bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1 and Pedobacter sp. V48. On hard agar, which is not permissive for motility the mono-culture of either species, co-culture reveals an emergent phenotype we term 'social motility,' where the bacteria spread across the hard surface. We show that initiation of social motility requires close association between the two species of bacteria. Both species remain associated throughout the spreading colony, with reproducible and non-homogenous patterns of distribution. The nutritional environment influences social motility; no social behavior is observed under high nutrient conditions, but low nutrient conditions are insufficient to promote social motility without high salt concentrations. This simple two-species consortium is a tractable model system that will facilitate mechanistic investigations of interspecies interactions and provide insight into emergent properties of interacting species. These studies will contribute to the broader knowledge of how bacterial interactions influence the functions of communities they inhabit.

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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-NC 4.0 International license.
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Posted April 06, 2018.
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Social Motility: Interaction between two sessile soil bacteria leads to emergence of surface motility
Lucy M McCully, Adam S Bitzer, Sarah C Seaton, Leah M Smith, Mark W Silby
bioRxiv 296814; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/296814
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Social Motility: Interaction between two sessile soil bacteria leads to emergence of surface motility
Lucy M McCully, Adam S Bitzer, Sarah C Seaton, Leah M Smith, Mark W Silby
bioRxiv 296814; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/296814

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