Trade-offs, trade-ups, and high mutational parallelism underlie microbial adaptation during extreme cycles of feast and famine.

ABSTRACT: Microbes are evolutionarily robust organisms capable of rapid adaptation to complex stress, which enables them to colonize harsh environments. In nature, microbes are regularly challenged by starvation, which is a particularly complex stress because resource limitation often co-occurs with changes in pH, osmolarity, and toxin accumulation created by metabolic waste. Often overlooked are the additional complications introduced by eventual resource replenishment, as successful microbes must withstand rapid environmental shifts before swiftly capitalizing on replenished resources to avoid invasion by competing species. To understand how microbes navigate trade-offs between growth and survival, ultimately adapting to thrive in environments with extreme fluctuations, we experimentally evolved 1

SUBMITTER: Behringer MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11066936 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature