Phenotypic plasticity as an adaptation to a functional trade-off

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Abstract

We report the evolution of a phenotypically plastic behavior that circumvents the hardwired trade-off that exists when resources are partitioned between growth and motility in Escherichia coli. We propagated cultures in a cyclical environment, alternating between growth up to carrying capacity and selection for chemotaxis. Initial adaptations boosted overall swimming speed at the expense of growth. The effect of the trade-off was subsequently eased through a change in behavior; while individual cells reduced motility during exponential growth, the faction of the population that was motile increased as the carrying capacity was approached. This plastic behavior was produced by a single amino acid replacement in FliA, a regulatory protein central to the chemotaxis network. Our results illustrate how phenotypic plasticity potentiates evolvability by opening up new regions of the adaptive landscape.

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Xiao Yi

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, United States

For correspondence
xiaoyi8607@gmail.com

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4025-856X
Antony M Dean

Department od Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, United States

For correspondence
deanx024@umn.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9546-7679

Funding

University of Minnesota (Research Support)

Xiao Yi

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.