Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs
Ecological and evolutionary dynamics are intrinsically entwined. On short timescales, ecological interactions determine the fate and impact of new mutants, while on longer timescales evolution shapes the entire community. Here, we study the evolution of large numbers of closely related strains with...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
2023-04-01
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| Series: | eLife |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://elifesciences.org/articles/82734 |
| _version_ | 1827914980283908096 |
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| author | Aditya Mahadevan Michael T Pearce Daniel S Fisher |
| author_facet | Aditya Mahadevan Michael T Pearce Daniel S Fisher |
| author_sort | Aditya Mahadevan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Ecological and evolutionary dynamics are intrinsically entwined. On short timescales, ecological interactions determine the fate and impact of new mutants, while on longer timescales evolution shapes the entire community. Here, we study the evolution of large numbers of closely related strains with generalized Lotka Volterra interactions but no niche structure. Host-pathogen-like interactions drive the community into a spatiotemporally chaotic state characterized by continual, spatially-local, blooms and busts. Upon the slow serial introduction of new strains, the community diversifies indefinitely, accommodating an arbitrarily large number of strains in spite of the absence of stabilizing niche interactions. The diversifying phase persists — albeit with gradually slowing diversification — in the presence of general, nonspecific, fitness differences between strains, which break the assumption of tradeoffs inherent in much previous work. Building on a dynamical-mean field-theory analysis of the ecological dynamics, an approximate effective model captures the evolution of the diversity and distributions of key properties. This work establishes a potential scenario for understanding how the interplay between evolution and ecology — in particular coevolution of a bacterial and a generalist phage species — could give rise to the extensive fine-scale diversity that is ubiquitous in the microbial world. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T02:52:57Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-dc886486f6984d45999eab657d302ee2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2050-084X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T02:52:57Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | eLife Sciences Publications Ltd |
| record_format | Article |
| series | eLife |
| spelling | doaj.art-dc886486f6984d45999eab657d302ee22023-06-28T09:25:44ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2023-04-011210.7554/eLife.82734Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffsAditya Mahadevan0https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5571-9993Michael T Pearce1Daniel S Fisher2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5559-2491Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, United StatesDepartment of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, United StatesDepartment of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, United StatesEcological and evolutionary dynamics are intrinsically entwined. On short timescales, ecological interactions determine the fate and impact of new mutants, while on longer timescales evolution shapes the entire community. Here, we study the evolution of large numbers of closely related strains with generalized Lotka Volterra interactions but no niche structure. Host-pathogen-like interactions drive the community into a spatiotemporally chaotic state characterized by continual, spatially-local, blooms and busts. Upon the slow serial introduction of new strains, the community diversifies indefinitely, accommodating an arbitrarily large number of strains in spite of the absence of stabilizing niche interactions. The diversifying phase persists — albeit with gradually slowing diversification — in the presence of general, nonspecific, fitness differences between strains, which break the assumption of tradeoffs inherent in much previous work. Building on a dynamical-mean field-theory analysis of the ecological dynamics, an approximate effective model captures the evolution of the diversity and distributions of key properties. This work establishes a potential scenario for understanding how the interplay between evolution and ecology — in particular coevolution of a bacterial and a generalist phage species — could give rise to the extensive fine-scale diversity that is ubiquitous in the microbial world.https://elifesciences.org/articles/82734strain diversitymodelingevolutionecology |
| spellingShingle | Aditya Mahadevan Michael T Pearce Daniel S Fisher Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs eLife strain diversity modeling evolution ecology |
| title | Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs |
| title_full | Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs |
| title_fullStr | Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs |
| title_short | Spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs |
| title_sort | spatiotemporal ecological chaos enables gradual evolutionary diversification without niches or tradeoffs |
| topic | strain diversity modeling evolution ecology |
| url | https://elifesciences.org/articles/82734 |
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