Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 9, 2026

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains
Published on: January 18, 2014
Free-living pathogens: life-history constraints and strain competition
1Department of Biological Sciences, University at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA. caraco@albany.edu
Abstract:
Many pathogen life histories include a free-living stage, often with anatomical and physiological adaptations promoting persistence outside of host tissues. More durable particles presumably require that the pathogen metabolize more resources per particle. Therefore, we hypothesize functional dependencies, pleiotropic constraints, between the rate at which free-living particles decay outside of host tissues and other pathogen traits, including virulence, the probability of infecting a host upon contact, and pathogen reproduction within host tissues. Assuming that pathogen strains compete for hosts preemptively, we find patterns in trait dependencies predicting whether or not strain competition favors a highly persistent free-living stage.
Related Concept Videos
Colonisation of Pathogens
Microbial Interactions: Parasitism
Microbial Interactions: Competition
Life Histories
Evolution of New Traits in Microbes
Diversity of Protists I

