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Investigating the eco-evolutionary tunnels for establishing cooperative communities
Seyfullah Enes Kotil1, Kalin Vetsigian2
1Department of Biophysics, Medical School, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Mathematical Biosciences
|December 31, 2022
Summary
Eco-evolutionary tunnels explain microbial community assembly. Higher-order interactions drive these tunnels, leading to cooperative evolutionary stable communities (ESC) and revealing insights into cooperation evolution.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Theoretical Biology
Background:
- Microbial community assembly is complex, with eco-evolutionary tunnels proposed as a key mechanism.
- Existing models often lack explicit dynamic interaction modeling.
Purpose of the Study:
- To model and characterize eco-evolutionary tunnels.
- To understand the emergence of cooperative evolutionary stable communities (ESC).
Main Methods:
- Utilized agent-based models to analyze eco-evolutionary tunnel dynamics.
- Developed dynamic models to explicitly represent species interactions.
Main Results:
- Identified higher-order interactions as sufficient for eco-evolutionary tunnels.
- Discovered three scenarios: costly cooperation, mutationally inaccessible assembly, and bistability.
- Demonstrated that specific predator-prey and cooperation dynamics necessitate eco-evolutionary tunneling.
Conclusions:
- Eco-evolutionary tunnels are crucial for the assembly of cooperative microbial communities.
- The study provides a dynamic modeling framework for understanding evolutionary processes in microbial ecology.
- Findings illuminate the evolution of cooperation and the influence of genetic drift and population limits.
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