Crowded growth leads to the spontaneous evolution of semistable coexistence in laboratory yeast populations.

ABSTRACT: Identifying the mechanisms that create and maintain biodiversity is a central challenge in biology. Stable diversification of microbial populations often requires the evolution of differences in resource utilization. Alternatively, coexistence can be maintained by specialization to exploit spatial heterogeneity in the environment. Here, we report spontaneous diversification maintained by a related but distinct mechanism: crowding avoidance. During experimental evolution of laboratory Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations, we observed the repeated appearance of "adherent" (A) lineages able to grow as a dispersed film, in contrast to their crowded "bottom-dweller" (B) ancestors. These two types stably coexist because dispersal reduces interference competition for nutrients among kin, at the c

SUBMITTER: Frenkel EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4568650 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature