Trait Evolution in Microbial Communities

Abstract

Understanding the evolutionary dynamics of microbial communities is a key step towards the goal of predicting and manipulating microbiomes to promote beneficial states. While interactions within microbiomes and between microbes and their environment collectively determine the community composition and population dynamics, we are often concerned with traits or functions of a microbiome that link more directly to host health. To study how traits of a microbiome are impacted by eco-evolutionary dynamics, we recast a classic resource-mediated population dynamic model into a population genetic framework which incorporates traits. The relative fitness of each group of microbes can be explicitly written in terms of population dynamic parameters, and corresponding evolutionary dynamics emerge. Using several example systems, we demonstrate how natural selection, mutation, and shifts in the environment work together to produce changes in traits over time.