Affiliation:
1. School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
Abstract
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 more than five phenotypic clusters within 26 days, with multiple variations in 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.
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Cited by
136 articles.
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