RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Bacterial responses to complex mixtures of chemical pollutants
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2023.02.18.529059
DO 10.1101/2023.02.18.529059
A1 Smith, Thomas P.
A1 Clegg, Tom
A1 Ransome, Emma
A1 Martin-Lilley, Thomas
A1 Rosindell, James
A1 Woodward, Guy
A1 Pawar, Samraat
A1 Bell, Thomas
YR 2023
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/02/18/2023.02.18.529059.abstract
AB Our understanding of how microbes respond to pollutants is almost wholly based on single-species responses to individual chemicals. However, in natural environments, microbes experience the effects of multiple pollutants simultaneously, and their responses to these mixtures of chemicals may not be readily predictable based on their responses to each pollutant in isolation. Here we extended the scope and complexity of previous multi-stressor experiments by assaying the growth of model and non-model strains of bacteria in all 255 combinations of 8 chemical stressors. This approach allowed us to identify fitness effects arising from potential high-order interactions among stressor responses. We found that the bacterial strains responded in different ways to stressor mixtures, which could not be predicted simply from their phylogenetic relatedness. Responses to increasingly complex chemical mixtures were more likely to show a significant deviation from a null model based on the responses to each chemical alone. However, these net responses were mainly driven by lower-order interactions among a small number of chemicals, suggesting a limited role for complex high-order interactions. These results simplify the predictability of microbial populations and communities responding to multiple stressors, paving the way for the development of efficient next-generation eco-toxicological assays.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.