Adaptation limits ecological diversification and promotes ecological tinkering during the competition for substitutable resources.

ABSTRACT: Microbial communities can evade competitive exclusion by diversifying into distinct ecological niches. This spontaneous diversification often occurs amid a backdrop of directional selection on other microbial traits, where competitive exclusion would normally apply. Yet despite their empirical relevance, little is known about how diversification and directional selection combine to determine the ecological and evolutionary dynamics within a community. To address this gap, we introduce a simple, empirically motivated model of eco-evolutionary feedback based on the competition for substitutable resources. Individuals acquire heritable mutations that alter resource uptake rates, either by shifting metabolic effort between resources or by increasing the overall growth rate. While these constit

SUBMITTER: Good BH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6217437 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature