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Local migration promotes competitive restraint in a host-pathogen 'tragedy of the commons'

Benjamin Kerr1, Claudia Neuhauser, Brendan J M Bohannan

  • 1Department of Biology, University of Washington, Box 351800, Seattle, Washington 98195-1800, USA. klaus@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

Nature
|July 11, 2006
PubMed

Insights

Migration patterns critically influence the evolution of microbial communities. Restricted migration favors "prudent" pathogen strategies, promoting coexistence, while unrestricted migration selects for "rapacious" strategies, risking community collapse.

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Microbiology

Background:

  • Fragmented populations can persist globally despite local extinctions if extinctions and recolonizations are asynchronous.
  • Migration is crucial for recolonization but can synchronize populations, increasing extinction risk.
  • Previous research focused on migration rates, not migration patterns, in fragmented populations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how migration patterns, not just rates, influence the evolutionary ecology of fragmented communities.
  • To understand the impact of migration patterns on host-pathogen dynamics and the evolution of pathogen strategies.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized experimental populations of bacterial hosts (Escherichia coli) and viral pathogens (T4 coliphage).
  • Manipulated migration patterns across a network of subpopulations.
  • Observed the evolution of pathogen strategies under different migration regimes.

Main Results:

  • Migration patterns significantly affect pathogen evolution and community coexistence.
  • Different migration patterns select for distinct pathogen strategies: 'rapacious' and 'prudent'.
  • Spatially restricted migration favors prudent phage, while unrestricted migration favors rapacious phage.

Conclusions:

  • The pattern of migration is a key factor determining the evolutionary trajectory of fragmented communities.
  • Migration patterns can resolve the 'tragedy of the commons' by favoring either restraint (prudent strategies) or exploitation (rapacious strategies).
  • Understanding migration patterns is essential for predicting the stability and persistence of ecological communities.

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