RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Experimental demonstration that screening can enable the environmental recruitment of a defensive microbiome
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 375634
DO 10.1101/375634
A1 Tabitha Innocent
A1 Neil Holmes
A1 Mahmoud Al Bassam
A1 Morten Schiøtt
A1 István Scheuring
A1 Barrie Wilkinson
A1 Matthew I Hutchings
A1 Jacobus J Boomsma
A1 Douglas W Yu
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/07/29/375634.abstract
AB Many animals and plants recruit beneficial microbes from the environment, enhancing their defence against pathogens. However, we have only a limited understanding of the assembly mechanisms involved. A game-theoretical concept from economics, screening, potentially explains how a host can selectively recruit antibiotic-producing microbes from the environment, by fomenting and biasing competition among potential symbionts in such a way that the likely winners are mutualists. The cuticular microbiomes of Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants inspired one of the first applications of screening theory to mutualisms, and here we use inoculation experiments to test the efficacy of screening in vitro. Using agar infused with antibacterial metabolites from the ants’ vertically transmitted Pseudonocardia symbionts, we show that secondary antibiotic-producing bacteria have higher growth rates than do non-producer strains and are more likely to win in direct competition. Our results demonstrate how game-theoretical concepts from economics can provide powerful insight into host-microbiome coevolution.