Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 111, Issue 3, Pages 1037-1042Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1313285111
Keywords
evolution; invasion; snow-drift game; microbes; auxotroph
Categories
Funding
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences [P50GM068763]
- National Centers for Systems Biology
- National Science Foundation [DMR-1005289]
- Harvard Materials Research Science and Engineering Center [DMR-0820484]
- German Research Foundation
- National Philanthropic Trust
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Mutualistic interactions benefit both partners, promoting coexistence and genetic diversity. Spatial structure can promote cooperation, but spatial expansions may also make it hard for mutualistic partners to stay together, because genetic drift at the expansion front creates regions of low genetic and species diversity. To explore the antagonism between mutualism and genetic drift, we grew cross-feeding strains of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae on agar surfaces as a model for mutualists undergoing spatial expansions. By supplying varying amounts of the exchanged nutrients, we tuned strength and symmetry of the mutualistic interaction. Strong mutualism suppresses genetic demixing during spatial expansions and thereby maintains diversity, but weak or asymmetric mutualism is over-whelmed by genetic drift even when mutualism is still beneficial, slowing growth and reducing diversity. Theoretical modeling using experimentally measured parameters predicts the size of demixed regions and how strong mutualism must be to survive a spatial expansion.
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