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Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community

Theory and empirical studies in metazoans predict that apex predators should shape the behavior and ecology of mesopredators and prey at lower trophic levels. Despite the ecological importance of microbial communities, few studies of predatory microbes examine such behavioral res-ponses and the mult...

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Autores principales: Mayrhofer, Nicola, Velicer, Gregory J., Schaal, Kaitlin A., Vasse, Marie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8307948/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34201688
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071362
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author Mayrhofer, Nicola
Velicer, Gregory J.
Schaal, Kaitlin A.
Vasse, Marie
author_facet Mayrhofer, Nicola
Velicer, Gregory J.
Schaal, Kaitlin A.
Vasse, Marie
author_sort Mayrhofer, Nicola
collection PubMed
description Theory and empirical studies in metazoans predict that apex predators should shape the behavior and ecology of mesopredators and prey at lower trophic levels. Despite the ecological importance of microbial communities, few studies of predatory microbes examine such behavioral res-ponses and the multiplicity of trophic interactions. Here, we sought to assemble a three-level microbial food chain and to test for behavioral interactions between the predatory nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the predatory social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus when cultured together with two basal prey bacteria that both predators can eat—Escherichia coli and Flavobacterium johnsoniae. We found that >90% of C. elegans worms failed to interact with M. xanthus even when it was the only potential prey species available, whereas most worms were attracted to pure patches of E. coli and F. johnsoniae. In addition, M. xanthus altered nematode predatory behavior on basal prey, repelling C. elegans from two-species patches that would be attractive without M. xanthus, an effect similar to that of C. elegans pathogens. The nematode also influenced the behavior of the bacterial predator: M. xanthus increased its predatory swarming rate in response to C. elegans in a manner dependent both on basal-prey identity and on worm density. Our results suggest that M. xanthus is an unattractive prey for some soil nematodes and is actively avoided when other prey are available. Most broadly, we found that nematode and bacterial predators mutually influence one another’s predatory behavior, with likely consequences for coevolution within complex microbial food webs.
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spelling pubmed-83079482021-07-25 Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community Mayrhofer, Nicola Velicer, Gregory J. Schaal, Kaitlin A. Vasse, Marie Microorganisms Article Theory and empirical studies in metazoans predict that apex predators should shape the behavior and ecology of mesopredators and prey at lower trophic levels. Despite the ecological importance of microbial communities, few studies of predatory microbes examine such behavioral res-ponses and the multiplicity of trophic interactions. Here, we sought to assemble a three-level microbial food chain and to test for behavioral interactions between the predatory nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the predatory social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus when cultured together with two basal prey bacteria that both predators can eat—Escherichia coli and Flavobacterium johnsoniae. We found that >90% of C. elegans worms failed to interact with M. xanthus even when it was the only potential prey species available, whereas most worms were attracted to pure patches of E. coli and F. johnsoniae. In addition, M. xanthus altered nematode predatory behavior on basal prey, repelling C. elegans from two-species patches that would be attractive without M. xanthus, an effect similar to that of C. elegans pathogens. The nematode also influenced the behavior of the bacterial predator: M. xanthus increased its predatory swarming rate in response to C. elegans in a manner dependent both on basal-prey identity and on worm density. Our results suggest that M. xanthus is an unattractive prey for some soil nematodes and is actively avoided when other prey are available. Most broadly, we found that nematode and bacterial predators mutually influence one another’s predatory behavior, with likely consequences for coevolution within complex microbial food webs. MDPI 2021-06-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8307948/ /pubmed/34201688 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071362 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Mayrhofer, Nicola
Velicer, Gregory J.
Schaal, Kaitlin A.
Vasse, Marie
Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community
title Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community
title_full Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community
title_fullStr Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community
title_full_unstemmed Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community
title_short Behavioral Interactions between Bacterivorous Nematodes and Predatory Bacteria in a Synthetic Community
title_sort behavioral interactions between bacterivorous nematodes and predatory bacteria in a synthetic community
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8307948/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34201688
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071362
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