Journal
EVOLUTION
Volume 63, Issue 11, Pages 3031-3037Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC
DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00758.x
Keywords
Biodiversity; biofilm; evolutionary ecology; experimental evolution; intermediate disturbance hypothesis
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Funding
- University of Manchester
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Disturbance is thought to be a major factor influencing patterns of biodiversity. In addition, disturbance can modify community composition if there are species specific trade-offs between fitness and disturbance tolerance. Here, we examine the role of disturbance on the evolution of coexisting biofilm-forming morphotypes of Pseudomonas fluorescens maintained in spatially structured laboratory microcosms. We identified four heritably stable ecotypes that varied significantly in their competitiveness under different disturbance treatments. Furthermore, we identified significant trade-offs in competitiveness across disturbance treatments for three of four of these ecotypes. These trade-offs modified dominance relationships between strains and thus altered community composition, with a peak of ecotype diversity occurring at intermediate disturbance frequencies.
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