Ecology: Phenotypic diversity, population growth, and information in fluctuating environments

Science

Volumn 309, Issue 5743, 2005, Pages 2075-2078

  Kussell, Edo ^a   Leibler, Stanislas ^a  

^a ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BIODIVERSITY; ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING; POPULATION STATISTICS; RANDOM PROCESSES;

CLONAL POPULATIONS; PHENOTYPIC DIVERSITY; POPULATION GROWTH; STOCHASTIC SWITCHING;

ECOLOGY;

FLAGELLIN;

PHENOTYPE;

ARTICLE; BACILLUS SUBTILIS; CLONAL VARIATION; ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE; ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR; ESCHERICHIA COLI; FLUCTUATING ENVIRONMENT; GENE SWITCHING; GROWTH RATE; HAEMOPHILUS INFLUENZAE; NONHUMAN; PHENOTYPIC VARIATION; POPULATION GROWTH; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SALMONELLA ENTERICA; STATISTICAL ANALYSIS; STOCHASTIC MODEL; ADAPTATION; ASSOCIATION; BIOLOGICAL MODEL; ECOSYSTEM; ENVIRONMENT; EVOLUTION; GENETIC VARIABILITY; MATHEMATICS; PHENOTYPE; POPULATION DYNAMICS; REPRODUCTION; STATISTICS;

BACILLUS SUBTILIS; ESCHERICHIA COLI; HAEMOPHILUS INFLUENZAE; SALMONELLA ENTERICA;

ADAPTATION, BIOLOGICAL; CUES; ECOSYSTEM; ENVIRONMENT; EVOLUTION; MATHEMATICS; MODELS, BIOLOGICAL; PHENOTYPE; POPULATION DYNAMICS; POPULATION GROWTH; REPRODUCTION; STOCHASTIC PROCESSES; VARIATION (GENETICS);

EID: 25444489027     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1114383     Document Type: Article

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34. Many sensing systems exist in microorganisms such as those involved in chemotaxis (31), the lac operon (32), and onset of stationary phase. In these examples and others, the environmental cue that is sensed occurs often, on the order of tens of generations or less, and our model predicts that sensing is advantageous. For bacterial persistence, experiments suggest that direct sensing might be absent (9). The appearance of antibiotic may be a relatively rare event in the natural habitats of E. coli (although direct evidence is scarce), in which case our model favors stochastic switching (33).
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38. We would like to thank G. Ben Arous, N. Balaban, R. Kishony, C. Bargmann, J. McKinney, L. Keller, R. Losick, A. Murray, A. Grosberg, J. Merrin, and O. Ahmed for discussions. We particularly thank G. Ben Arous and C. Bargmann for their encouragements and many detailed comments about the manuscript E.K. thanks the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for financial support.