How Do Microbial Populations and Communities Function as Model Systems?

O’Malley, Maureen A.; Travisano, Michael; Velicer, Gregory J.; Bolker, Jessica A.

doi:10.1086/682588

Cited by 18 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 201 publications

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“…Model microbial communities in the laboratory are increasingly used to test hypotheses in ecology and evolution (O’Malley et al . 2015; Goldford et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterising a stable five-species microbial community for use in experimental evolution and ecology

Padfield

Castledine

Pennycook

et al. 2020

Preprint

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23The ability of species to mutually invade from rare is the defining measure of species 24 coexistence. However, it is unknown whether invasion growth rates predict any characteristic 25 of long-term community dynamics. Here, we use a model five-species microbial community 26 to investigate the link between short-term growth rate and long-term relative abundance. We 27 manipulated diversity and tested the ability of species to coexist in different combinations. 28Across all diversity levels and species combinations, populations re-established from rare in 29 71 of 75 combinations and all combinations were stable in long-term culture. Moreover, short-30 term relative invader growth rate was positively associated with long-term equilibrium 31 proportion, despite large variation in interactions between species and communities. This 32 finding was confirmed using a modelling approach and suggests that the short-term invasion 33 growth rate can predict long-term relative abundance within that community. 34 56 both support (Martínez-Meyer et al. 2013) and refute (Dallas & Hastings 2018) the niche 57 centrality hypothesis across animal and plant communities. Recent theory has highlighted why 58 this macroecological relationship may not be ubiquitous, with spatial and temporal variation 59 3 and metapopulation dynamics potentially causing this relationship to break down (Holt 2019; 60

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“…Model microbial communities in the laboratory are increasingly used to test hypotheses in ecology and evolution (O’Malley et al . 2015; Goldford et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterising a stable five-species microbial community for use in experimental evolution and ecology

Padfield

Castledine

Pennycook

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Microorganisms have been invaluable laboratory models in biotechnology and genetic research because they have short generation times and small size, are relatively easy to manipulate genetically and control experimentally, and are resistant to long-term storage (Jessup et al, 2004;O'Malley, Travisano, Velicer, & Bolker, 2015). However, they are largely missing from Eco-Evo-Devo efforts, which have focused mainly on plants and animals, perhaps mostly for practical reasons such as ease of evaluating phenotypic outcomes (Gilbert & Epel, 2015;Sultan, 2015).…”

Section: Eco-evo-devo At the Microscalementioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory biases hinder Eco‐Evo‐Devo integration: Hints from the microbial world

et al. 2019

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How specific environmental contexts contribute to the robustness and variation of developmental trajectories and evolutionary transitions is a central point in Ecological Evolutionary Developmental Biology (“Eco‐Evo‐Devo”). However, the articulation of ecological, evolutionary and developmental processes into integrative frameworks has been elusive, partly because standard experimental designs neglect or oversimplify ecologically meaningful contexts. Microbial models are useful to expose and discuss two possible sources of bias associated with conventional gene‐centered experimental designs: the use of laboratory strains and standard laboratory environmental conditions. We illustrate our point by showing how contrasting developmental phenotypes in Myxococcus xanthus depend on the joint variation of temperature and substrate stiffness. Microorganismal development can provide key information for better understanding the role of environmental conditions in the evolution of developmental variation, and to overcome some of the limitations associated with current experimental approaches.

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“…Making a model system that approximated the endosymbiosis that led to the mitochondrion might be rather a long shot, but learning more about endosymbioses in general as they occur and are manipulated in laboratories would be part of a venerable tradition of using microbial model systems to make generalizable inferences (O'Malley et al 2015;Fenchel et al 1977). Perhaps the abundance of experiments in endosymbiosis in nature, alongside their increasing amenability to molecular analysis and historical reconstruction, decrease the perceived need for laboratory-based manipulations of endosymbiosis.…”

Section: Evolutionary Inferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Then, magnificently, prokaryotes came into their own as molecular model systems (Jacob and Wollman 1961;Davis 2003;O'Malley et al 2015). In many research areas, microbes have outcompeted multicellular organisms as model systems because of microbial capacities to represent biological phenomena in highly tractable ways (Love and Travisano 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

Molecular organisms

O’Malley

2015

Biol Philos

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Protistology, and evolutionary protistology in particular, is experiencing a golden research era. It is an extended one that can be dated back to the 1970s, which is when the molecular rebirth of microbial phylogeny began in earnest. John Archibald, a professor of evolutionary microbiology at Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia, Canada), focuses on the beautiful story of endosymbiosis in his book, John Archibald, One Plus One Equals One: Symbiosis and the Origin of Complex Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). However, this historical narrative could be treated as synecdochal of how the molecular revolution has changed evolutionary biology forever, and that is how Archibald has structured his book. I will address the encompassing theme of molecular methods in detail, but also pay careful attention to the endosymbiosis thread in its own right.

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How Do Microbial Populations and Communities Function as Model Systems?

Cited by 18 publications

References 201 publications

Characterising a stable five-species microbial community for use in experimental evolution and ecology

Characterising a stable five-species microbial community for use in experimental evolution and ecology

Laboratory biases hinder Eco‐Evo‐Devo integration: Hints from the microbial world

Molecular organisms

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