2022/11/30 by Miles T. Wetherington, Krisztina Nagy, László Dér +4 · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensing
paper · pdf · doi:10.1186/s12915-022-01462-5
openalex publication_date 2022/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
BACKGROUND: During range expansion in spatially distributed habitats, organisms differ from one another in terms of their patterns of localization versus propagation. To exploit locations or explore the landscape? This is the competition-colonization trade-off, a dichotomy at the core of ecological succession. In bacterial communities, this trade-off is a fundamental mechanism towards understanding spatio-temporal fluxes in microbiome composition. RESULTS: Using microfluidics devices as structured bacterial habitats, we show that, in a synthetic two-species community of motile strains, Escherichia coli is a fugitive species, whereas Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a slower colonizer but superior competitor. We provide evidence highlighting the role of succession and the relevance of this trade-off in the community assembly of bacteria in spatially distributed patchy landscapes. Furthermore, aggregation-dependent priority effects enhance coexistence which is not possible in well-mixed environments. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings underscore the interplay between micron-scale landscape structure and dispersal in shaping biodiversity patterns in microbial ecosystems. Understanding this interplay is key to unleash the technological revolution of microbiome applications.