Mechanism for microbial population collapse in a fluctuating resource environment.

ABSTRACT: Managing trade-offs through gene regulation is believed to confer resilience to a microbial community in a fluctuating resource environment. To investigate this hypothesis, we imposed a fluctuating environment that required the sulfate-reducer Desulfovibrio vulgaris to undergo repeated ecologically relevant shifts between retaining metabolic independence (active capacity for sulfate respiration) and becoming metabolically specialized to a mutualistic association with the hydrogen-consuming Methanococcus maripaludis Strikingly, the microbial community became progressively less proficient at restoring the environmentally relevant physiological state after each perturbation and most cultures collapsed within 3-7 shifts. Counterintuitively, the collapse phenomenon was prevented b

SUBMITTER: Turkarslan S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5371734 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature