Abstract
In order to investigate the contribution of the physical environment to variation in multicellular development of Myxococcus xanthus, phenotypes developed by different genotypes in a gradient of substrate stiffness conditions were quantitatively characterized. Statistical analysis showed that plastic phenotypes result from the genotype, the substrate conditions and the interaction between them. Also, phenotypes were expressed in two distinguishable scales, the individual and the population levels, and the interaction with the environment showed scale and trait specificity. Overall, our results highlight the constructive role of the physical context in the development of microbial multicellularity, with both ecological and evolutionary implications.
Highlights
Developmental patterns, and phenotype in general, have often been considered as univocal outcomes of the genome
Since development occurs at changing and often organism-modified environmental conditions, increased survival, adaptation and phenotypic innovation can result from flexible phenotypic responses
Our results show that phenotypic plasticity for multicellularity in M. xanthus involves multiple levels of biological organization: single fruiting bodies (FBs) and FB groups
Summary
Developmental patterns, and phenotype in general, have often been considered as univocal outcomes of the genome. Research has focused—conceptually and experimentally—on studying genetic mechanisms in invariable environmental conditions. Phenotype has been shown to involve complex, bidirectional interactions between organisms and their environment. The phenotypic repertoire of a given genotype across a range of environmental conditions is called reaction norm [7] and its characterization constitutes the most common approximation to the study of organism–environment interactions. Since development occurs at changing and often organism-modified environmental conditions, increased survival, adaptation and phenotypic innovation can result from flexible phenotypic responses (phenotypic plasticity). Plasticity itself contributes as a cause and not just as a consequence of development and phenotypic transitions in evolution [1,5,8,9,10]
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