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Related Concept Videos

Competition02:34

Competition

When organisms require the same limited resources within an environment, they may have to compete for them. Competition is a net-negative interaction. Even if two competing individuals or populations do not interact directly, the overall fitness of both competitors is lowered as a result of not having full access to the limited resource.Intraspecific competition, which occurs between individuals of the same species, serves as a natural mechanism for regulating population size. Too much...
Microbial Interactions: Competition01:26

Microbial Interactions: Competition

Microbial competition is an ecological interaction in which microorganisms vie for limited resources within shared environments. These resources may include nutrients, space, or light, depending on the system. The intensity and outcome of competition are influenced by the environmental context, such as nutrient availability, spatial constraints, and the diversity of microbial species present. These competitive interactions significantly influence the structure, function, and resilience of...
Limits to Natural Selection01:38

Limits to Natural Selection

Organisms that are well-adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. However, natural selection does not lead to perfectly adapted organisms. Several factors constrain natural selection.For one, natural selection can only act upon existing genetic variation. Hypothetically, redtusks may enhance elephant survival by deterring ivory-seeking poachers. However, if there are no gene variants—or alleles—for redtusks, natural selection cannot increase the prevalence of...
Population Growth00:57

Population Growth

Population size is dynamic, increasing with birth rates and immigration, and decreasing with death rates and emigration. In ideal conditions with unlimited resources, populations can increase exponentially, which plots as a J-shaped growth rate curve of population size against time. This type of curve is characteristic of newly-introduced invasive species, or populations that have suffered catastrophic declines and are rebounding.However, realistic environmental conditions limit the number of...
Ecological Niches02:02

Ecological Niches

All organisms have a position within an ecosystem. The complete set of living and nonliving factors—including food resources, climate, and terrain—that define the position of a given organism are collectively referred to as the organism’s ecological niche.Multiple species cannot occupy the exact same niche within their habitat. If the niches of two or more species overlap to a large extent, the competitive exclusion principle dictates that one species will outcompete the other, forcing it to...
Energy Budgets and Reproductive Strategies00:51

Energy Budgets and Reproductive Strategies

Organisms must balance energy intake with the energy required for growth, maintenance, and reproduction. These trade-offs result in a variety of survivorship and reproductive strategies, including semelparity and iteroparity. Semelparous species reproduce only once in their lifetime, often investing most available resources into that single reproductive event. Iteroparous species, by contrast, reproduce multiple times over their lifetimes, typically allocating fewer resources to any single...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 4, 2026

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
15:00

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

Published on: August 18, 2023

Persistent trade-offs balance competition and colonization across centuries.

Talia Backman1, Jiajun Cui2, Emma Caullireau1

  • 1School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|June 2, 2026
PubMed
Summary

In natural Pseudomonas populations, a trade-off between microbial competition and host colonization has persisted for centuries. This fundamental balance between competitive killing and pathogenicity is not easily overcome by evolutionary adaptation.

Keywords:
ancient DNAmicrobe–host interactionsmicrobial ecologymicrobial evolutiontailocins

More Related Videos

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains
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Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains

Published on: January 18, 2014

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 4, 2026

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
15:00

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

Published on: August 18, 2023

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains
06:45

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains

Published on: January 18, 2014

Area of Science:

  • Microbial Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genomics

Background:

  • Microbial competition drives rapid adaptation and niche specialization.
  • Adaptations enhancing competitive ability can create trade-offs, reducing performance in other environments.
  • The persistence of such trade-offs in natural populations is largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the stability of trade-offs between competitive ability and host colonization in natural Pseudomonas populations.
  • To determine if evolutionary adaptations erode or maintain these trade-offs over time.

Main Methods:

  • Genomic surveys of wild plant-pathogenic Pseudomonas.
  • Functional assays to assess tailocin production and its effects.
  • Analysis of historical genomes spanning two centuries.

Main Results:

  • A stable trade-off exists between Pseudomonas competitive ability and plant colonization.
  • Broadly lethal tailocins, while increasing competitive killing, compromise host colonization.
  • This trade-off has been maintained for at least 10^5 to 10^6 generations.

Conclusions:

  • Trade-offs between competition and pathogenicity are fundamental in natural Pseudomonas populations.
  • These trade-offs are stably maintained and not easily overcome by compensatory evolution.
  • The findings highlight the enduring nature of ecological trade-offs in microbial evolution.