Effect of mutation supply on population dynamics and trait evolution in
experimental microbial community
Abstract
Mutation supply can influence eco-evolutionary dynamics in important
ways which have received little attention. Mutation supply determines
key features of population genetics, such as the pool of adaptive
mutations, evolutionary pathways available, and importance of processes
such as clonal interference. The resultant trait evolutionary dynamics,
in turn, can alter population size and species interactions. However,
controlled experiments testing for the importance of mutation supply on
rapid adaptation and thereby population and community dynamics are
lacking. To close this knowledge gap, we performed a serial passage
experiment with wild-type Pseudomonas fluorescens and an isogenic xerD
mutant with reduced mutation rate. Bacteria were grown at two resource
levels in combination with the presence of a ciliate predator. We found
that a higher mutation supply enabled faster adaptation to the
low-resource environment and anti-predatory defense. This was associated
with higher population size at the ecological level and better access to
high-recurrence mutational targets at the genomic level for the strain
with higher mutation supply. In contrast, mutation rate did not affect
growth under high-resource level, possibly because of more permissive
conditions or high population size saturated in mutations. Our results
demonstrate that intrinsic mutation rate influences population dynamics
and trait evolution particularly when population size is constrained by
extrinsic conditions.