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Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities

Substrate competition is a common mode of microbial interaction in natural environments. While growth properties play an important and well-studied role in competition, we here focus on the influence of motility. In a simulated two-strain community populating a homogeneous two-dimensional environmen...

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Autores principales: Centler, Florian, Thullner, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313714/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25699031
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2015.00040
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author Centler, Florian
Thullner, Martin
author_facet Centler, Florian
Thullner, Martin
author_sort Centler, Florian
collection PubMed
description Substrate competition is a common mode of microbial interaction in natural environments. While growth properties play an important and well-studied role in competition, we here focus on the influence of motility. In a simulated two-strain community populating a homogeneous two-dimensional environment, strains competed for a common substrate and only differed in their chemotactic preference, either responding more sensitively to a chemoattractant excreted by themselves or responding more sensitively to substrate. Starting from homogeneous distributions, three possible behaviors were observed depending on the competitors' chemotactic preferences: (i) distributions remained homogeneous, (ii) patterns formed but dissolved at a later time point, resulting in a shifted community composition, and (iii) patterns emerged and led to the extinction of one strain. When patterns formed, the more aggregating strain populated the core of microbial aggregates where starving conditions prevailed, while the less aggregating strain populated the more productive zones at the fringe or outside aggregates, leading to a competitive advantage of the less aggregating strain. The presence of a competitor was found to modulate a strain's behavior, either suppressing or promoting aggregate formation. This observation provides a potential mechanism by which an aggregated lifestyle might evolve even if it is initially disadvantageous. Adverse effects can be avoided as a competitor hinders aggregate formation by a strain which has just acquired this ability. The presented results highlight both, the importance of microbial motility for competition and pattern formation, and the importance of the temporal evolution, or history, of microbial communities when trying to explain an observed distribution.
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spelling pubmed-43137142015-02-19 Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities Centler, Florian Thullner, Martin Front Microbiol Microbiology Substrate competition is a common mode of microbial interaction in natural environments. While growth properties play an important and well-studied role in competition, we here focus on the influence of motility. In a simulated two-strain community populating a homogeneous two-dimensional environment, strains competed for a common substrate and only differed in their chemotactic preference, either responding more sensitively to a chemoattractant excreted by themselves or responding more sensitively to substrate. Starting from homogeneous distributions, three possible behaviors were observed depending on the competitors' chemotactic preferences: (i) distributions remained homogeneous, (ii) patterns formed but dissolved at a later time point, resulting in a shifted community composition, and (iii) patterns emerged and led to the extinction of one strain. When patterns formed, the more aggregating strain populated the core of microbial aggregates where starving conditions prevailed, while the less aggregating strain populated the more productive zones at the fringe or outside aggregates, leading to a competitive advantage of the less aggregating strain. The presence of a competitor was found to modulate a strain's behavior, either suppressing or promoting aggregate formation. This observation provides a potential mechanism by which an aggregated lifestyle might evolve even if it is initially disadvantageous. Adverse effects can be avoided as a competitor hinders aggregate formation by a strain which has just acquired this ability. The presented results highlight both, the importance of microbial motility for competition and pattern formation, and the importance of the temporal evolution, or history, of microbial communities when trying to explain an observed distribution. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-02-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4313714/ /pubmed/25699031 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2015.00040 Text en Copyright © 2015 Centler and Thullner. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Microbiology
Centler, Florian
Thullner, Martin
Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities
title Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities
title_full Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities
title_fullStr Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities
title_full_unstemmed Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities
title_short Chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities
title_sort chemotactic preferences govern competition and pattern formation in simulated two-strain microbial communities
topic Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313714/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25699031
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2015.00040
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