Richard Whitman
Research Ecologist/Station Chief
Lake Michigan Ecological Research Station
219-926-8336 Ext. 424
1100 North Mineral Springs Road
Porter, IN 46304
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L Whitman/BRD/USGS/DOI on 07/07/2006 03:39 PM -----
Joy_Marburger@nps.gov
07/07/2006 10:42 AM
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Subject
article in Science
Clonal Adaptive Radiation in a Constant Environment
Ram Maharjan 1, Shona Seeto 1, Lucinda Notley-McRobb 1, Thomas Ferenci
1*
1 School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, The University of Sydney,
NSW 2006 Australia.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Thomas Ferenci , E-mail: tferenci@mail.usyd.edu.au
The evolution of new combinations of bacterial properties contributes
to
biodiversity and the emergence of new diseases. We investigated the
capacity for bacterial divergence with a chemostat culture of Escherichia
coli. A clonal population radiated into >5 phenotypic clusters within
26
days, with multiple variations to global regulation, metabolic strategies,
surface properties and nutrient permeability pathways. Most isolates
belonged to a single ecotype and neither periodic selection events nor
ecological competition for a single niche prevented an adaptive radiation
with a single resource. The multidirectional exploration of fitness space
is an underestimated ingredient to bacterial success even in unstructured
environments.