Artificial selection of simulated microbial ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Recent work with microbial communities has demonstrated an adaptive response to artificial selection at the level of the ecosystem. The reasons for this response and the level at which adaptation occurs are unclear: does selection act implicitly on traits of individual species, or are higher-level traits genuinely being selected? If the ecosystem response is just the additive combination of the responses of the constituent species, then the ecosystem response could be predicted a priori, and the ecosystem-level selection process is superfluous. However, if the ecosystem response results from ecological interactions among species, then selection at a higher level is necessary. Here we perform artificial ecosystem selection experiments on an individual-based evolutionary simulation model of

SUBMITTER: Williams HT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1885603 | biostudies-literature | 2007 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature