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Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli

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Growth rate evolution in improved environments under Prodigal Son dynamics.

Sinéad Collins¹

¹Institute of Evolutionary Biology University of Edinburgh Edinburgh UK.

Evolutionary Applications

|October 4, 2016

Summary

Environmental enrichment may not sustainably increase microbial cell division rates. Rapid reproduction can increase cellular damage, leading to a return to ancestral growth rates, a phenomenon termed Prodigal Son dynamics.

Keywords:

CO2 Chlamydomonas Ostreococcus cell division rate environmental change individual‐based model microevolution oxidative damage primary production

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Microbial ecology
Theoretical biology

Background:

Environmental enrichment can drive evolutionary adaptation.
Cellular damage is a potential constraint on rapid reproduction.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the evolution of cell division rates in asexual populations under chronic environmental enrichment.
To determine if environmental improvement reliably leads to long-term increases in microbial reproductive rates.

Main Methods:

Utilized an individual-based model.
Simulated asexual populations over hundreds of generations under improved environmental conditions.

Main Results:

Maintaining increased growth rates was limited by cellular damage from rapid reproduction.
In the absence of evolved damage tolerance or repair mechanisms, sustained increases in division rates were not observed.
Prodigal Son dynamics: rapid cell division led to increased damage, selection for repair/avoidance, and a decrease in growth rate.

Conclusions:

Environmental enrichment does not guarantee sustained increases in microbial cell division rates.
Cellular damage and subsequent repair/avoidance mechanisms can counteract initial growth rate increases.
Understanding these dynamics is crucial for applications involving microbial growth, such as biofuel production and biofouling control.