A design-constraint trade-off underpins the diversity in ecologically important traits in species Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial species are internally diverse in genomic and multi-locus gene comparisons. The ecological causes of phenotypic and genotypic diversity within species are far less well understood. Here, we focus on the competitive fitness for growth on nutrients within Escherichia coli, an internally rich species. Competition experiments in nutrient-limited chemostats revealed that members of the ECOR collection exhibited a wide continuum of competitive abilities, with some fitter and some less fit than the lab strain MG1655. We observed an inverse relationship between competitiveness and the resistance of strains to detergent and antibiotic, consistent with the notion that membrane permeability and competitive fitness are linked by a trade-off between self-preservation and nutritional competenc

SUBMITTER: Phan K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3965312 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature