PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Shreyas Gokhale
AU  - Arolyn Conwill
AU  - Tanvi Ranjan
AU  - Jeff Gore
TI  - Migration alters oscillatory dynamics and promotes survival in connected bacterial populations
AID  - 10.1101/223487
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 223487
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/28/223487.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/28/223487.full
AB  - Migration influences population dynamics on networks, thereby playing a vital role in scenarios ranging from species extinction to epidemic propagation. While low migration rates prevent local populations from becoming extinct, high migration rates enhance the risk of global extinction by synchronizing the dynamics of connected populations. Here, we investigate this trade-off using two mutualistic strains of E. coli that exhibit population oscillations when co-cultured. In experiments, as well as in simulations using a mechanistic model, we observe that high migration rates lead to in-phase synchronization whereas intermediate migration rates perturb the oscillations and change their period. Further, our simulations predict, and experiments show, that connected populations subjected to more challenging antibiotic concentrations have the highest probability of survival at intermediate migration rates. Finally, we identify altered population dynamics, rather than recolonization, as the primary cause of extended survival.