A complex symbiosis involving within species variation in the response ofDictyosteliumamoebae toBurkholderiabacteria
AbstractRecent symbioses, particularly facultative ones, are well suited for unravelling the evolutionary give and take between partners. Here we look at variation in wild-collected samples of the social amoebaDictyostelium discoideumand their relationships with bacterial symbionts,Burkholderia hayleyellaandBurkholderia agricolaris. Only about a third of field-collected amoebae carry a symbiont. We cured and cross-infectedD. discoideumhosts with different symbiont association histories and then compared the responses of the amoebae to each symbiont type. Before curing, field-collected clones did not vary significantly in overall fitness, but infected hosts produced morphologically different multicellular structures. After curing and re-infecting, host fitness declined overall. However, naturalB. hayleyellahosts suffered fewer fitness costs when re-infected withB. hayleyella,indicating that they have evolved mechanisms to tolerate their naturally acquired symbiont. Exploring relationships between endosymbionts and hosts that vary within species may also reveal much about disease dynamics.