Interspecific diversity reduces and functionally substitutes for intraspecific variation in biofilm communities.

ABSTRACT: Diversity has a key role in the dynamics and resilience of communities and both interspecific (species) and intraspecific (genotypic) diversity can have important effects on community structure and function. However, a critical and unresolved question for understanding the ecology of a community is to what extent these two levels of diversity are functionally substitutable? Here we show, for a mixed-species biofilm community composed of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, P. protegens and Klebsiella pneumoniae, that increased interspecific diversity reduces and functionally substitutes for intraspecific diversity in mediating tolerance to stress. Biofilm populations generated high percentages of genotypic variants, which were largely absent in biofilm communities. Biofilms with either high intra- or i

SUBMITTER: Kelvin Lee KW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4796923 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature