Rapid radiation in bacteria leads to a division of labour

Wook Kim (), Stuart B. Levy and Kevin R. Foster ()
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Wook Kim: University of Oxford
Stuart B. Levy: Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance, Tufts University School of Medicine
Kevin R. Foster: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The division of labour is a central feature of the most sophisticated biological systems, including genomes, multicellular organisms and societies, which took millions of years to evolve. Here we show that a well-organized and robust division of labour can evolve in a matter of days. Mutants emerge within bacterial colonies and work with the parent strain to gain new territory. The two strains self-organize in space: one provides a wetting polymer at the colony edge, whereas the other sits behind and pushes them both along. The emergence of the interaction is repeatable, bidirectional and only requires a single mutation to alter production of the intracellular messenger, cyclic-di-GMP. Our work demonstrates the power of the division of labour to rapidly solve biological problems without the need for long-term evolution or derived sociality. We predict that the division of labour will evolve frequently in microbial populations, where rapid genetic diversification is common.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10508

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