PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Bram van Dijk
AU  - Jeroen Meijer
AU  - Thomas D Cuypers
AU  - Paulien Hogeweg
TI  - Virtual Microbes evolve multiple mechanisms to the same end: anticipating a serial transfer protocol
AID  - 10.1101/554766
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 554766
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/04/11/554766.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/04/11/554766.full
AB  - Background Experimental evolution of microbes often involves a serial transfer protocol, where microbes are repeatedly diluted by transfer to a fresh medium, starting a new growth cycle. This protocol has revealed that evolution can be remarkably reproducible, where microbes show parallel adaptations both on the level of the phenotype as well as the genotype. However, these studies also reveal a strong potential for divergent evolution, leading to diversity both between and within replicate populations. We here study how in silico evolved Virtual Microbe “wild types” (WTs) adapt to a serial transfer protocol to investigate both the generic evolutionary adaptation to such an environment which are independent of prior evolution, and the variety of ways in which the adaptation is implemented at the individual and ecosystem level.Results We show that all pre-evolved WTs evolve to anticipate the regularity of the serial transfer protocol by adopting a fine-tuned balance of growth and survival. We find that this anticipation can be done in a variety of ways, either by a single lineage or by several lineages in consort. Interestingly, replicate populations of the same WT initially show similar trajectories, but may subsequently diverge along a growth rate versus yield trade-off.Conclusions We find that all our in silico WTs show the same anticipation effects — fitting the periodicity of a serial transfer protocol — but do so by a variety of mechanisms. Our results reveal new insights into the dynamics and relevant selection pressures in experimental evolution, but also highlight how, in an eco-evolutionary context, numerous mechanisms can evolve to the same end.LTEE: Long Term Evolution Experiment (first published by R Lenski, 1991)WT: wild type (plural: WTs)TF: Transcription Factor (plural: TFs)GRN: Gene Regulatory Network (plural: GRNs)