Department of Biophysics, Medical School, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Department of Bacteriology and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Math Biosci. 2023 Feb;356:108959. doi: 10.1016/j.mbs.2022.108959. Epub 2022 Dec 28.
Diversity is abundant among microbial communities. Understanding the assembly of diverse microbial communities is a significant challenge. One of the recent plausible explanations for the assembly involves eco-evolutionary tunnels, where species interact in the same timescale with the mutational rate. Analysis of data generated by agent-based models was used to understand these tunnels. However, modeling the interactions explicitly by dynamic models is lacking. Here, we present the modeling and characterization of eco-evolutionary tunnels that give rise to cooperative evolutionary stable communities (ESC). We find that higher order, but common interactions are sufficient for eco-evolutionary tunnels. We identify three distinct scenarios: evolution of costly cooperation, mutationally inaccessible assembly, and bistability. Biological interpretations of the models are shedding light on the evolution of cooperation. One of the important findings is that if species maximize their benefit by preying on the other strain when dominant and cooperating at intermediate abundances, the assembly process needs eco-evolutionary tunneling. In addition, we characterize the importance of genetic drift with respect to eco-evolutionary tunnels, intermittently stable communities, and the effect of high population limits on the tunnels.
微生物群落中存在丰富的多样性。理解多样化微生物群落的组装是一个重大挑战。最近的一个合理解释涉及生态进化隧道，在这个隧道中，物种以与突变率相同的时间尺度相互作用。通过基于代理的模型生成的数据进行分析来理解这些隧道。然而，通过动态模型明确地建模相互作用还很缺乏。在这里，我们提出了生态进化隧道的建模和特征描述，这些隧道导致了合作进化稳定的群落（ESC）。我们发现，更高阶但常见的相互作用对于生态进化隧道是足够的。我们确定了三种不同的情况：昂贵合作的进化、突变不可访问的组装和双稳定性。模型的生物学解释揭示了合作的进化。其中一个重要发现是，如果物种在占优势时通过捕食另一个菌株来最大化自己的利益，而在中等丰度时合作，那么组装过程就需要生态进化隧道。此外，我们还描述了遗传漂变对生态进化隧道、间歇稳定群落以及种群极限对隧道的影响的重要性。
