Costs of being a diet generalist for the protist predator Dictyostelium discoideum.

ABSTRACT: Consumers range from specialists that feed on few resources to generalists that feed on many. Generalism has the clear advantage of having more resources to exploit, but the costs that limit generalism are less clear. We explore two understudied costs of generalism in a generalist amoeba predator, Dictyostelium discoideum, feeding on naturally co-occurring bacterial prey. Both involve costs of combining prey that are suitable on their own. First, amoebas exhibit a reduction in growth rate when they switched to one species of prey bacteria from another compared to controls that experience only the second prey. The effect was consistent across all six tested species of bacteria. These switching costs typically disappear within a day, indicating adjustment to new prey bacteria. This su

SUBMITTER: Shreenidhi PM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10998602 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature