Phenotypic plasticity as an adaptation to a functional trade-off

Phenotypic plasticity as an adaptation to a functional trade-off

Blog Article

We report the evolution of a phenotypically plastic behavior that circumvents the hardwired trade-off that exists when resources are partitioned between growth alarecre.com 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 iphone 14 price arizona potentiates evolvability by opening up new regions of the adaptive landscape.