Journal Article

An interplay of resource availability, population size and mutation rate potentiates the evolution of metabolic signaling

Kumawat, Bhaskar, Bhat, Ramray

2021

Overview

Background Asexually reproducing populations of single cells evolve through mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. Environmental conditions in which the evolution takes place define the emergent fitness landscapes. In this work, we used Avida—a digital evolution framework—to uncover a hitherto unexplored interaction between mutation rates, population size, and the relative abundance of metabolizable resources, and its effect on evolutionary outcomes in small populations of digital organisms. Results Over each simulation, the population evolved to one of several states, each associated with a single dominant phenotype with its associated fitness and genotype. For a low mutation rate, acquisition of fitness by organisms was accompanied with, and dependent on, an increase in rate of genomic replication. At an increased mutation rate, phenotypes with high fitness values were similarly achieved through enhanced genome replication rates. In addition, we also observed the frequent emergence of suboptimal fitness phenotype, wherein neighboring organisms signaled to each other information relevant to performing metabolic tasks. This metabolic signaling was vital to fitness acquisition and was correlated with greater genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity in the population. The frequency of appearance of signaling populations increased with population size and with resource abundance. Conclusions Our results reveal a minimal set of environment–genotype interactions that lead to the emergence of metabolic signaling within evolving populations.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Analysis / Animal Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography / Artificial life / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Cell metabolism / Cellular signal transduction / Cooperation / Development / EcoEvoDevo / Entomology / Environmental conditions / Evolution / Evolutionary Biology / Evolutionary genetics / Gene mutations / Genetic aspects / Genetic Drift / Genetics and Population Dynamics / Genomes / Genomics / Genotypes / Heterogeneity / Influence / Life Sciences / Metabolism / Mutation / Mutation Rate / Mutation rates / Natural selection / Organisms / Phenotype / Phenotypes / Population / Population Density / Population genetics / Population number / Relative abundance / Replication / Reproductive fitness / Research Article / Resource availability / Selection, Genetic / Signaling / Tumorigenesis