Microbial population dynamics decouple growth response from environmental nutrient concentration.

ABSTRACT: How the growth rate of a microbial population responds to the environmental availability of chemical nutrients and other resources is a fundamental question in microbiology. Models of this response, such as the widely used Monod model, are generally characterized by a maximum growth rate and a half-saturation concentration of the resource. What values should we expect for these half-saturation concentrations, and how should they depend on the environmental concentration of the resource? We survey growth response data across a wide range of organisms and resources. We find that the half-saturation concentrations vary across orders of magnitude, even for the same organism and resource. To explain this variation, we develop an evolutionary model to show that demographic fluctuations (genetic

SUBMITTER: Fink JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9926246 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature