Metabolic trade-offs and the maintenance of the fittest and the flattest

Robert E. Beardmore, Ivana Gudelj, David A. Lipson and Laurence D. Hurst ()
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Robert E. Beardmore: Imperial College London, Huxley Building, 180 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 2A7, UK
Ivana Gudelj: Imperial College London, Huxley Building, 180 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 2A7, UK
David A. Lipson: San Diego State University
Laurence D. Hurst: University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

Nature, 2011, vol. 472, issue 7343, 342-346

Abstract: The maintenance of diversity Environmental heterogeneity is considered an important factor in the maintenance of species diversity. Yet diversity is also maintained in some homogeneous environments. Ecological theory has struggled, in particular, to account for the diversity of metabolic strategies found in seemingly homogeneous populations of microbes grown in chemostats. An explanation that fits the experimental data is now offered: at realistic mutation rates there is coexistence between fit genotypes that have unfit neighbours on the adaptive landscape, and less fit but more mutationally robust (sometimes called 'flat') genotypes.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature09905

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