Journal article
Evolution and maintenance of microbe-mediated protection under occasional pathogen infection
- Abstract:
- Every host is colonized by a variety of microbes, some of which can protect their hosts from pathogen infection. However, pathogen presence naturally varies over time in nature, such as in the case of seasonal epidemics. We experimentally coevolved populations of Caenorhabditis elegans worm hosts with bacteria possessing protective traits (Enterococcus faecalis ), in treatments varying the infection frequency with pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus every host generation, alternating host generations, every fifth host generation, or never. We additionally investigated the effect of initial pathogen presence at the formation of the defensive symbiosis. Our results show that enhanced microbe‐mediated protection evolved during host‐protective microbe coevolution when faced with rare infections by a pathogen. Initial pathogen presence had no effect on the evolutionary outcome of microbe‐mediated protection. We also found that protection was only effective at preventing mortality during the time of pathogen infection. Overall, our results suggest that resident microbes can be a form of transgenerational immunity against rare pathogen infection.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 578.5KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1002/ece3.6555
Authors
+ European Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0472cxd90
- Grant:
- COEVOPRO802242
- Programme:
- FP7 Ideas
+ Leverhulme Trust
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/012mzw131
- Grant:
- RPG-2015-165
+ German National Academic Foundation
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/05xwwfy96
- Publisher:
- Wiley Open Access
- Journal:
- Ecology and Evolution More from this journal
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 16
- Pages:
- 8634-8642
- Publication date:
- 2020-07-16
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-06-15
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2045-7758
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1112333
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1112333
- Deposit date:
-
2020-06-15
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Kloock et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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