The evolution of multicellular organisms requires the formation of a higher-level entity from cooperative interactions among lower level units. To participate in the process of natural selection, the new multicellular group needs to fulfil Darwin’s criteria of variation, heritability, and differential reproduction as well as find a way to control conflicts of interest among lower-level units.
Bacteria commonly form multicellular groups such as free-floating clusters or surface-attached biofilms. The strong propensity of bacteria to attach to other bacterial cells suggests a strong adaptive advantage drives this pattern. However, it has never been explicitly tested whether such bacterial consortia fulfil the above criteria and are thus the unit of selection. We aim at identifying the molecular principles governing bacterial aggregation and the evolutionary consequences resulting from this behaviour. To address this issue, we analyse synthetically constructed and naturally evolved consortia consisting of one or several species. These experiments are complemented by theoretical models to fully understand the evolutionary dynamics within communities of aggregating bacterial cells. |
Researchers:
Selected Publications:
D’Souza G, Shitut S, Preussger D, Yousif G, Waschina S, Kost C. (2018) Ecology and evolution of metabolic cross-feeding interactions in bacteria, Natural Product Reports, 35, 455-488. doi:10.1039/C8NP00009C.
Pande S, Kost C. (2017). Bacterial unculturability and the formation of intercellular metabolic networks. Trends in Microbiology, 25(5), 349-361. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2017.02.015
Pande S, Kost C. (2017). Bacterial unculturability and the formation of intercellular metabolic networks. Trends in Microbiology, 25(5), 349-361. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2017.02.015