How does evolution work in superabundant microbes?
Year: 2024
Type: review
Abstract: Marine phytoplankton play crucial roles in the Earth's ecological, chemical, and geological processes. They are responsible for about half of global primary production and drive the ocean biological carbon pump. Understanding how plankton species may adapt to the Earth's rapidly changing environments is evidently an urgent priority. This problem requires evolutionary genetic approaches as evolution occurs at the level of allele frequency change within populations driven by genetic drift and natural selection (microevolution). Plankters such as the coccolithophore Gephyrocapsa huxleyi and the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus 'marinus' are among Earth's most abundant organisms. In this opinion paper we discuss how evolution in astronomically large populations of superabundant microbes (SAMs) may act fundamentally differently than it does in the populations of more modest size found in well-studied organisms. This offers exciting opportunities to study evolution in the conditions that have yet to be explored and also leads to unique challenges. Exploring these opportunities and challenges is the goal of this article.
Source: Trends in Microbiology
Authors: Dmitry A. Filatov, Mark Kirkpatrick
Institutions: University of Oxford, The University of Texas at Austin
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $7,030
Awards: PUCCA: Photosynthetic Underpinnings of Coccolithophore CAlcification, Genomic causes and consequences of sexually antagonistic selection, Evolution of dosage compensation on recently evolved sex chromosomes, Dimensions: Ordering the microbial world into natural genetic, ecological, and functional units
OpenAlex ID: W4391825292