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Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis

BACKGROUND: Symbiosis is a major source of evolutionary innovation and, by allowing species to exploit new ecological niches, underpins the functioning of ecosystems. The transition from free-living to obligate symbiosis requires the alignment of the partners’ fitness interests and the evolution of...

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Autores principales: Minter, Ewan J. A., Lowe, Chris D., Sørensen, Megan E. S., Wood, A. Jamie, Cameron, Duncan D., Brockhurst, Michael A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6038246/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29986646
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-018-1227-9
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author Minter, Ewan J. A.
Lowe, Chris D.
Sørensen, Megan E. S.
Wood, A. Jamie
Cameron, Duncan D.
Brockhurst, Michael A.
author_facet Minter, Ewan J. A.
Lowe, Chris D.
Sørensen, Megan E. S.
Wood, A. Jamie
Cameron, Duncan D.
Brockhurst, Michael A.
author_sort Minter, Ewan J. A.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Symbiosis is a major source of evolutionary innovation and, by allowing species to exploit new ecological niches, underpins the functioning of ecosystems. The transition from free-living to obligate symbiosis requires the alignment of the partners’ fitness interests and the evolution of mutual dependence. While symbiotic taxa are known to vary widely in the extent of host-symbiont dependence, rather less is known about variation within symbiotic associations. RESULTS: Using experiments with the microbial symbiosis between the protist Paramecium bursaria and the alga Chlorella, we show variation between pairings in host-symbiont dependence, encompassing facultative associations, mutual dependence and host dependence upon the symbiont. Facultative associations, that is where both the host and the symbiont were capable of free-living growth, displayed higher symbiotic growth rates and higher per host symbiont loads than those with greater degrees of dependence. CONCLUSIONS: These data show that the Paramecium-Chlorella interaction exists at the boundary between facultative and obligate symbiosis, and further suggest that the host is more likely to evolve dependence than the algal symbiont. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-018-1227-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-60382462018-07-12 Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis Minter, Ewan J. A. Lowe, Chris D. Sørensen, Megan E. S. Wood, A. Jamie Cameron, Duncan D. Brockhurst, Michael A. BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Symbiosis is a major source of evolutionary innovation and, by allowing species to exploit new ecological niches, underpins the functioning of ecosystems. The transition from free-living to obligate symbiosis requires the alignment of the partners’ fitness interests and the evolution of mutual dependence. While symbiotic taxa are known to vary widely in the extent of host-symbiont dependence, rather less is known about variation within symbiotic associations. RESULTS: Using experiments with the microbial symbiosis between the protist Paramecium bursaria and the alga Chlorella, we show variation between pairings in host-symbiont dependence, encompassing facultative associations, mutual dependence and host dependence upon the symbiont. Facultative associations, that is where both the host and the symbiont were capable of free-living growth, displayed higher symbiotic growth rates and higher per host symbiont loads than those with greater degrees of dependence. CONCLUSIONS: These data show that the Paramecium-Chlorella interaction exists at the boundary between facultative and obligate symbiosis, and further suggest that the host is more likely to evolve dependence than the algal symbiont. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-018-1227-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6038246/ /pubmed/29986646 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-018-1227-9 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Minter, Ewan J. A.
Lowe, Chris D.
Sørensen, Megan E. S.
Wood, A. Jamie
Cameron, Duncan D.
Brockhurst, Michael A.
Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis
title Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis
title_full Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis
title_fullStr Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis
title_full_unstemmed Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis
title_short Variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis
title_sort variation and asymmetry in host-symbiont dependence in a microbial symbiosis
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6038246/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29986646
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-018-1227-9
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