Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Microbiology
Impact of heat stress on the fitness outcomes of symbiotic infection in aphids: a meta-analysis
Published: 2021-11-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Microbiology
Beneficial microorganisms shape the evolutionary trajectories of their hosts, facilitating or constraining the colonization of new ecological niches. One convincing example entails the responses of insect-microbe associations to rising temperatures. Indeed, the insect resilience to stressful high temperatures depends on the genetic identity of the obligate symbiont and the presence of heat [...]
Many defense systems in microbial genomes, but which is defending whom from what?
Published: 2021-09-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Microbiology
Prokaryotes have numerous mobile genetic elements (MGE) that mediate horizontal gene transfer between cells. These elements can be costly, even deadly, and cells use numerous defense systems to filter, control or inactivate them. Surprisingly, many phages, conjugative plasmids, and their parasites, phage satellites or mobilizable plasmids, encode defense systems homologous to those of bacteria. [...]
Glucocorticoids coordinate changes in gut microbiome composition in wild North American red squirrels
Published: 2021-09-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Gut microbiome diversity plays an important role in host health and fitness, in part through the diversification of gut metabolic function and pathogen protection. Elevations in glucocorticoids (GCs) appear to reduce gut microbiome diversity in experimental studies, suggesting that a loss of microbial diversity may be a negative consequence of increased GCs. However, given that ecological factors [...]
Allogenous Selection of Mutational Collateral Resistance: Old Drugs Select for New Resistances Within Antibiotic Families
Published: 2021-09-11
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology
Allogeneous selection occurs when an antibiotic selects for resistance to more advanced members of the same family. The mechanisms of allogenous selection are (a) collateral expansion, when the antibiotic expands the gene and gene-containing bacterial populations favoring the emergence of other mutations, inactivating the more advanced antibiotics; (b) collateral selection, when the old [...]
Plant herbivore protection by arbuscular mycorrhizas: A role for fungal diversity?
Published: 2021-07-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences
The symbiotic association between arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and terrestrial plants can enhance plant defences against insect herbivores. Despite advances in our understanding of how AM fungi affect plant tolerance and resistance based defence mechanisms, we contend that the role of fungal diversity in these interactions continues to be largely overlooked. This is problematic considering [...]
Impact of Infectious Disease on Humans and Our Origins
Published: 2021-06-18
Subjects: Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology, Arts and Humanities, Bacteriology, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biological and Physical Anthropology, Biological Phenomena, Cell Phenomena, and Immunity, Cell and Developmental Biology, Cell Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetic Phenomena, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology, Life Sciences, Medical Biochemistry, Medical Cell Biology, Medical Genetics, Medical Immunology, Medical Microbiology, Medical Molecular Biology, Medical Pathology, Medical Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Molecular Genetics, Pathogenic Microbiology, Pharmacology, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Virology
On May 16, 2020, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny organized the symposium “Impact of Infectious Disease on Humans and Our Origins”. The symposium aimed to gather experts on infectious diseases in one place and discuss the interrelationship between different pathogens and humans in an evolutionary context. The talks discussed topics including SARS-CoV-2, dengue and [...]
The macroevolutionary consequences of niche construction in microbial metabolism
Published: 2021-05-31
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Population Biology, Systems Biology
Microorganisms display a stunning metabolic diversity. Understanding the origin of this diversity requires understanding how macroevolutionary processes such as innovation and diversification play out in the microbial world. Metabolic networks, which govern microbial resource use, can evolve through different mechanisms, e.g. horizontal gene transfer or de novo evolution of enzymes and pathways. [...]
Understanding plant microbiomes requires a G x E framework
Published: 2021-05-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Breeding and Genetics Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Plant microbiomes have become one of the hottest topics in plant biology. Driven by the increased availability of metagenome sequencing methods, analyses of plant-associated microbiomes have been skyrocketing during the last decade. They have generally taken one of two main perspectives: (1) a focus on the microbiome itself, where researchers describe microbiome diversity and attempt to [...]
Spillback in the Anthropocene: the risk of human-to-wildlife pathogen transmission for conservation and public health
Published: 2021-04-11
Subjects: Bacteriology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Public Health, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health, Virology
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to increased concern over transmission of pathogens from humans to animals (“spillback”) and its potential to threaten conservation and public health. To assess this threat, we reviewed published evidence of spillback events, including instances where spillback could threaten conservation and human health. We identified 97 verified examples of spillback, involving [...]
Microbial effects on plant phenology and fitness
Published: 2021-02-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Sciences
Plant development and the timing of developmental events (phenology) are tightly coupled with plant fitness. A variety of internal and external factors determine the timing and fitness consequences of these life-history transitions. Microbes interact with plants throughout their life-history and impact host phenology. This review summarizes current mechanistic and theoretical knowledge [...]
Perspective: The evolutionary dangers of high COVID case counts
Published: 2021-02-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Virology
The recent simultaneous appearance of numerous highly contagious variants of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrate that the rate of adaptive evolution in the SARS-CoV-2 population is accelerating. It is no longer appropriate to focus only on epidemiological goals like flattening the curve and vaccinating to achieve herd immunity. We are now in a new phase of the pandemic, in which we must also focus on the [...]
Soil fungal diversity and community assembly: Affected by island size or type?
Published: 2021-01-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Fungi have huge biodiversity and play important roles in soil biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem services in island ecosystems. Although island biogeography has been widely studied in macroorganisms, the relationship between soil fungal diversity and area in islands is less documented. Here, we examine soil fungal communities of 18 oceanic islands belonged to two types of islands (8 general [...]
Evolutionary Pathways and Trajectories in Antibiotic Resistance
Published: 2021-01-26
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Pathogenic Microbiology
Evolution is the hallmark of life. Descriptions of the evolution of microorganisms have provided a wealth of information, but knowledge regarding “what happened” has precluded a deeper understanding of “how” evolution has proceeded, as in the case of antimicrobial resistance. The difficulty in answering the “how” question lies in the multihierarchical dimensions of evolutionary processes, nested [...]
Assembly processes lead to divergent soil fungal communities within and among twelve forest ecosystems along a latitudinal gradient
Published: 2021-01-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
- Latitudinal gradients provide opportunities to better understand soil fungal community assembly and its relationship with vegetation, climate, soil and ecosystem function. Understanding the mechanisms underlying community assembly is essential for predicting compositional responses to changing environments. - We quantified the relative importance of stochastic and deterministic processes in [...]
Ecological Countermeasures for Pandemic Prevention: When Ecological Restoration is a Human Health Imperative
Published: 2020-12-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bacteriology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, Integrative Biology, International Public Health, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Parasitology, Pathogenic Microbiology, Population Biology, Public Health, Systems Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology, Zoology
Ecological restoration should be regarded as a public health service. Unfortunately, the lack of quantitative linkages between environmental and human health has limited recognition of these principle. Advent of COVID-19 pandemic provides the impetus for the further discussion. We propose ecological countermeasures as highly targeted, landscape-based interventions to arrest the drivers of land [...]