Quorum sensing provides a molecular mechanism for evolution to tune and maintain investment in cooperation

As selection frequently favors noncooperating defectors in mixed populations with cooperators, mechanisms that promote cooperation stability clearly exist. One potential mechanism is bacterial cell-to-cell communication, quorum sensing (QS), which can allow cooperators to prevent invasion by defectors. However, the impact of QS on widespread maintenance of cooperation in well-mixed conditions has not been experimentally demonstrated over extended evolutionary timescales. Here, we use wild-type (WT) Vibrio campbellii that regulates cooperation with QS and an unconditional cooperating (UC) mutant to examine the evolutionary origins and dynamics of novel defectors during a long-term evolution experiment. We found that UC lineages were completely outcompeted by defectors, whereas functioning QS enabled the maintenance of cooperative variants in most WT populations. Sequencing evolved populations revealed multiple luxR mutations that swept the UC lineages. However, the evolution of mutant lineages with reduced levels of bioluminescence (dims) occurred in many WT lineages. These dim variants also decreased other cooperative phenotypes regulated by QS, including protease production, indicating they result from changes to QS regulation. This diminished investment phenotype optimizes a tradeoff between cooperative input and growth output and suggests that decreasing the cost of QS could be a favorable strategy for maintaining the cooperative behaviors it regulates.Subject terms: Bacterial evolution, Microbial ecology, Molecular evolution     

Tentoxin-induced loss of plastidic polyphenol oxidase

Tentoxin-treated mung bean plants are shown to lack chloroplast polyphenol oxidase (PPO) by enzymatic, electrophoretic and cytochemical analysis. Incorporation of PPO (a protein coded by nuclear DNA) into the plastid may occur via concentration of the protein into inner envelope-derived vesicles. PPO integration into the plastid is apparently blocked by a tentoxin treatment although fraction I protein (and hence the proteins for chloroplast ribosome production) is not affected by this fungal toxin. Both apical and etiolated plastids from teotoxin-treated plants lack PPO. Thus, it is unlikely that the primary effect of tentoxin is due to the binding of the chloroplast coupling factor, as previously supposed.     

Regeneration of neural crest derivatives in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Xenopus</Emphasis>tadpole tail

Background  

After amputation of the Xenopus tadpole tail, a functionally competent new tail is regenerated. It contains spinal cord, notochord and muscle, each of which has previously been shown to derive from the corresponding tissue in the stump. The regeneration of the neural crest derivatives has not previously been examined and is described in this paper.     

Increasing the effectiveness of spring trap crops for Leptinotarsa decemlineata

Insecticide resistance problems have increased interest in trap crops as a cultural control strategy for overwintered Colorado potato beetle adults, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). Growers in the north central United States have noticed and treated concentrations of adults at the edge of some of their potato fields each spring. Based on sampling in commercial potato fields over a 2-year period, early planted fields that are adjacent to the previous year's potato crop are most likely to have concentrations of adults at the field edge. Frequency of fields with significantly more adults at the edges than in the center sections as well as adult population density in the center sections of fields declined with both distance from the previous potato field and later planting date. The effects of both physical and chemical barriers to movement into potato fields from the field edges were studied in small plot trials and at the edges of commercial potato fields. In small plot trials, physical barriers had a greater impact than chemical barriers on adult beetle movement from a potato trap crop to the protected potatoes beyond the barrier. Barrier treatments reduced beetle numbers in and just beyond the barrier in commercial fields, but the effects were localized and no significant reduction of beetles was observed further into the field. Beetle flight was hypothesized to be responsible for the localized effects of barrier treatments and the lack of edge concentrations in later planted and more distantly rotated fields. In field studies, larger potato plants attracted more colonizing potato beetles than smaller plants. Attracting Colorado potato beetles to trap crops containing potato plants that were larger than those in the remainder of the field, however, provided no significant reduction of beetles in the remainder of the field. We found little opportunity to reduce beetle populations with trap crops at the edges of potato fields without controlling the adults in the trap crop itself. Growers can exploit naturally occurring concentrations of adults at the edges of early and adjacent potato plantings if they are prepared to monitor and regularly treat the field edges.     

EVOLUTION OF THERMAL DEPENDENCE OF GROWTH RATE OF ESCHERICHIA COLI POPULATIONS DURING 20,000 GENERATIONS IN A CONSTANT ENVIRONMENT

Abstract.— Twelve experimental populations of the bacterium Escherichia coli evolved for 20,000 generations in a defined medium at 37°C. We measured their maximum growth rates across a broad range of temperatures and at several evolutionary time points to quantify the extent to which they became thermal specialists with diminished performance at other temperatures. We also sought to determine whether antagonistic pleiotropy (genetic trade‐offs) or mutation accumulation (drift decay) was primarily responsible for any thermal specialization. Populations showed consistent improvement in growth rate at moderate temperatures (27–39°C), but tended to have decreased growth rate at both low (20°C) and high (41–42°C) temperatures. Most loss occurred early in the experiment, when adaptation was most rapid. This dynamic is predicted by antagonistic pleiotropy but not by mutation accumulation. Several populations evolved high mutation rates due to defects in their DNA repair, but they did not subsequently undergo a greater decrease in growth rate at thermal extremes than populations that retained low mutation rates, contrary to the acceleration of decay predicted by mutation accumulation. Antagonistic pleiotropy therefore is more likely to be responsible for the evolution of thermal specialization observed in maximum growth rate.     

Poliovirus retention in 75-cm soil cores after sewage and rainwater application.

The adsorption rate of a guanidine-resistant strain of poliovirus LSc 2ab was measured in Long Island soils with in situ field cores (10.1 by 75 cm). The test virus was chosen because it exhibited soil adsorption and elution characteristics of a number of non-polioviruses. After the inoculation of cores with seeded sewage effluent at a 1-cm/h infiltration rate, cores were extracted, fractionated, and analyzed for total plaque-forming units per each 5-cm fraction. The results showed that 77% of the viruses were adsorbed in the first 5 cm of soil. An additional 11% were found in the 5- to 10-cm fraction, and a total of 96% of the viruses were adsorbed by 25 cm. The remaining 4% were uniformly distributed over the next 50 cm of soil, with a minimum of 0.23% in each soil section. Few viruses (< 0.22%) were observed in core filtrates. Analysis of the viral distribution pattern in seeded cores, after an application of a single rinse of either sewage effluent or rainwater, indicated that large-scale viral mobilization was absent. However, localized areas of viral movement were noted in both of the rinsed cores, with the rainwater-rinsed cores exhibiting more expensive movement. All mobilized viruses were resorbed at lower core depths.