Hidden paths to endless forms most wonderful: ecology latently shapes evolution of multicellular development in predatory bacteria.

ABSTRACT: Ecological causes of developmental evolution, for example from predation, remain much investigated, but the potential importance of latent phenotypes in eco-evo-devo has received little attention. Using the predatory bacterium Myxococcus xanthus, which undergoes aggregative fruiting body development upon starvation, we tested whether adaptation to distinct growth environments that do not induce development latently alters developmental phenotypes under starvation conditions that do induce development. In an evolution experiment named MyxoEE-3, growing M. xanthus populations swarmed across agar surfaces while adapting to conditions varying at factors such as surface stiffness or prey identity. Such ecological variation during growth was found to greatly impact the latent evolution of develo

SUBMITTER: La Fortezza M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9481553 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature