scholarly journals Understanding the evolution of interspecies interactions in microbial communities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florien A. Gorter ◽  
Michael Manhart ◽  
Martin Ackermann
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Interaction Strength ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Systematic Effect ◽  
Interspecies Interactions ◽  
Fitness Effects ◽  
Indirect Fitness ◽  
Approaches To Study ◽  
Beneficial Traits ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractMicrobial communities are complex multi-species assemblages that are characterized by a multitude of interspecies interactions, which can range from mutualism to competition. The overall sign and strength of interspecies interactions have important consequences for emergent community-level properties such as productivity and stability. It is not well understood whether and how interspecies interactions change over evolutionary timescales. Here, we review the empirical evidence that evolution is an important driver of microbial community properties and dynamics on timescales that have traditionally been regarded as purely ecological. Next, we briefly discuss different modelling approaches to study evolution of communities, emphasizing the similarities and differences between evolutionary and ecological perspectives. We then propose a simple conceptual model for the evolution of communities. Specifically, we propose that the evolution of interspecies interactions depends crucially on the spatial structure of the environment. We predict that in well-mixed environments, traits will be selected exclusively for their direct fitness effects, while in spatially structured environments, traits may also be selected for their indirect fitness effects. Selection of indirectly beneficial traits should result in an increase in interaction strength over time, while selection of directly beneficial traits should not have such a systematic effect. We tested our intuitions using a simple quantitative model and found support for our hypotheses. The next step will be to test these hypotheses experimentally and provide input for a more refined version of the model in turn, thus closing the scientific cycle of models and experiments.

scholarly journals Understanding the evolution of interspecies interactions in microbial communities

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1798) ◽  
pp. 20190256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florien A. Gorter ◽  
Michael Manhart ◽  
Martin Ackermann
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Interaction Strength ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Systematic Effect ◽  
Interspecies Interactions ◽  
Fitness Effects ◽  
Indirect Fitness ◽  
Beneficial Traits ◽  
Selection Of

Microbial communities are complex multi-species assemblages that are characterized by a multitude of interspecies interactions, which can range from mutualism to competition. The overall sign and strength of interspecies interactions have important consequences for emergent community-level properties such as productivity and stability. It is not well understood how interspecies interactions change over evolutionary timescales. Here, we review the empirical evidence that evolution is an important driver of microbial community properties and dynamics on timescales that have traditionally been regarded as purely ecological. Next, we briefly discuss different modelling approaches to study evolution of communities, emphasizing the similarities and differences between evolutionary and ecological perspectives. We then propose a simple conceptual model for the evolution of interspecies interactions in communities. Specifically, we propose that to understand the evolution of interspecies interactions, it is important to distinguish between direct and indirect fitness effects of a mutation. We predict that in well-mixed environments, traits will be selected exclusively for their direct fitness effects, while in spatially structured environments, traits may also be selected for their indirect fitness effects. Selection of indirectly beneficial traits should result in an increase in interaction strength over time, while selection of directly beneficial traits should not have such a systematic effect. We tested our intuitions using a simple quantitative model and found support for our hypotheses. The next step will be to test these hypotheses experimentally and provide input for a more refined version of the model in turn, thus closing the scientific cycle of models and experiments. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Conceptual challenges in microbial community ecology’.

Cooperative selection of action in tapping: A quantitative model

1991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Vaughan ◽  
David A. Rosenbaum ◽  
Cathleen Moore
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Selection Of

scholarly journals Spatial structure arising from chase-escape interactions with crowding

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anudeep Surendran ◽  
Michael J. Plank ◽  
Matthew J. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Structure ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Interaction Strength ◽  
Distinct Species ◽  
Interspecies Interactions ◽  
Individual Based Model ◽  
Directional Bias ◽  
Spatial Moments ◽  
Individual Level

Abstract Movement of individuals, mediated by localised interactions, plays a key role in numerous processes including cell biology and ecology. In this work, we investigate an individual-based model accounting for various intraspecies and interspecies interactions in a community consisting of two distinct species. In this framework we consider one species to be chasers and the other species to be escapees, and we focus on chase-escape dynamics where the chasers are biased to move towards the escapees, and the escapees are biased to move away from the chasers. This framework allows us to explore how individual-level directional interactions scale up to influence spatial structure at the macroscale. To focus exclusively on the role of motility and directional bias in determining spatial structure, we consider conservative communities where the number of individuals in each species remains constant. To provide additional information about the individual-based model, we also present a mathematically tractable deterministic approximation based on describing the evolution of the spatial moments. We explore how different features of interactions including interaction strength, spatial extent of interaction, and relative density of species influence the formation of the macroscale spatial patterns.

scholarly journals Sources and selection of snow-specific microbial communities in a Greenlandic sea ice snow cover

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorrie Maccario ◽  
Shelly D. Carpenter ◽  
Jody W. Deming ◽  
Timothy M. Vogel ◽  
Catherine Larose
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Snow Cover ◽  
Selection Of

scholarly journals Male relatedness and familiarity are required to modulate male-induced harm to females in Drosophila

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1860) ◽  
pp. 20170441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Le Page ◽  
Irem Sepil ◽  
Ewan Flintham ◽  
Tommaso Pizzari ◽  
Pau Carazo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Kin Recognition ◽  
Female Reproduction ◽  
Fitness Effects ◽  
Inclusive Fitness Theory ◽  
Indirect Fitness ◽  
Female Lifespan

Males compete over mating and fertilization, and often harm females in the process. Inclusive fitness theory predicts that increasing relatedness within groups of males may relax competition and discourage male harm of females as males gain indirect benefits. Recent studies in Drosophila melanogaster are consistent with these predictions, and have found that within-group male relatedness increases female fitness, though others have found no effects. Importantly, these studies did not fully disentangle male genetic relatedness from larval familiarity, so the extent to which modulation of harm to females is explained by male familiarity remains unclear. Here we performed a fully factorial design, isolating the effects of male relatedness and larval familiarity on female harm. While we found no differences in male courtship or aggression, there was a significant interaction between male genetic relatedness and familiarity on female reproduction and survival. Relatedness among males increased female lifespan, reproductive lifespan and overall reproductive success, but only when males were familiar. By showing that both male relatedness and larval familiarity are required to modulate female harm, these findings reconcile previous studies, shedding light on the potential role of indirect fitness effects on sexual conflict and the mechanisms underpinning kin recognition in fly populations.

scholarly journals Massively parallel screening of synthetic microbial communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (26) ◽  
pp. 12804-12809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Kehe ◽  
Anthony Kulesa ◽  
Anthony Ortiz ◽  
Cheri M. Ackerman ◽  
Sri Gowtham Thakku ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Massively Parallel ◽  
Phenotypic Characterization ◽  
Interspecies Interactions ◽  
Additional Species ◽  
Plant Symbiont ◽  
Complementary Approach ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Synthetic Microbial Communities

Microbial communities have numerous potential applications in biotechnology, agriculture, and medicine. Nevertheless, the limited accuracy with which we can predict interspecies interactions and environmental dependencies hinders efforts to rationally engineer beneficial consortia. Empirical screening is a complementary approach wherein synthetic communities are combinatorially constructed and assayed in high throughput. However, assembling many combinations of microbes is logistically complex and difficult to achieve on a timescale commensurate with microbial growth. Here, we introduce the kChip, a droplets-based platform that performs rapid, massively parallel, bottom-up construction and screening of synthetic microbial communities. We first show that the kChip enables phenotypic characterization of microbes across environmental conditions. Next, in a screen of ∼100,000 multispecies communities comprising up to 19 soil isolates, we identified sets that promote the growth of the model plant symbiontHerbaspirillum frisingensein a manner robust to carbon source variation and the presence of additional species. Broadly, kChip screening can identify multispecies consortia possessing any optically assayable function, including facilitation of biocontrol agents, suppression of pathogens, degradation of recalcitrant substrates, and robustness of these functions to perturbation, with many applications across basic and applied microbial ecology.

scholarly journals Bioprinting microbial communities to examine interspecies interactions in time and space

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 055010 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F Hynes ◽  
Jeremy Chacón ◽  
Daniel Segrè ◽  
Christopher J Marx ◽  
Nathaniel C Cady ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Interspecies Interactions ◽  
Time And Space
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