Publication Title
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Document Type
Article
Department or Program
Digital and Computational Studies
Publication Date
12-13-2023
Keywords
coevolution, mathematical models, priority effects, specialization, symbiosis
Abstract
Intracellular symbioses provide a useful system for exploring evolutionary and ecological forces that shape mutualistic partnerships. Within- and among-host competitiveness driven by different strategies that symbionts adopt as they transfer materials to the host across a sub-cellular membrane might explain patterns of host:symbiont association observed in natural systems. We tested the hypothesis that different translocation strategies employed by symbionts affect their ability to occupy host habitats using two distinct modeling approaches. The first involved constructing a deterministic, Lotka-Volterra-type model with two symbiont species competing for access to a single host. The model recovered expected behaviors of co-occupancy/coinfection as well as competitive exclusion. However, a specialization coefficient allowed advantages to accrue to one of the symbionts and permitted otherwise inferior competitors to displace superior competitors. The second approach involved developing and implementing a detailed, highly configurable, and realstic agent-based model (ABM), facilitating experimentation of multiple symbiont strategies in competition simultaneously. The ABM emphasizes bidirectional movement of materials between symbiont and host (e.g., photosynthate from algae to heterotrophic host). Competitive interactions between symbionts based on simple strategies led to exclusion of the inferior symbiont or co-occupancy of the host. As in the first model, inferior competitors could overtake superior competitors when “affinity” terms (i.e., specialization) were included in the model. Both models lay bare the importance of coevolutionary specialization as a selectively advantageous strategy, and they offer a new conceptual framework for interpreting the dynamic patterns observed in extant host and mutualist associations by challenging the idea of “host control” of outcomes, and identifying specific points where coevolutionary specialization might accrue.
Recommended Citation
Hill, M., Lawson, B., Cain, J. W., Rahman, N., Toolsidass, S., Wang, T., Geraghty, S., Raymundo, E., & Hill, A. (2023). Sustained beneficial infections: priority effects, competition, and specialization drive patterns of association in intracellular mutualisms. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1221012
Copyright Note
Copyright © 2023 Hill, Lawson, Cain, Rahman, Toolsidass, Wang, Geraghty, Raymundo and Hill. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License.
Comments
Original version is available from the publisher at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1221012