Resource Level Affects Relative Performance of the Two Motility Systems of Myxococcus xanthus

The adventurous (A) and social (S) motility systems of the microbial predator Myxococcus xanthus show differential swarming performance on distinct surface types. Under standard laboratory conditions, A-motility performs well on hard agar but poorly on soft agar, whereas the inverse pattern is shown by S-motility. These properties may allow M. xanthus to swarm effectively across a greater diversity of natural surfaces than would be possible with one motility system alone. Nonetheless, the range of ecological conditions under which dual motility enhances effective swarming across distinct surfaces and how ecological parameters affect the complementarity of A-motility and S-motility remain unclear. Here we have examined the role of nutrient concentration in determining swarming patterns driven by dual motility on distinct agar surfaces, as well as the relative contributions of A-motility and S-motility to these patterns. Swarm expansion rates of dually motile (A⁺S⁺), solely A-motile (A⁺S⁻), and solely S-motile (A⁻S⁺) strains were compared on hard and soft agar across a wide range of casitone concentrations. At low casitone concentrations (0–0.1%), swarming on soft agar driven by S-motility is very poor, and is significantly slower than swarming on hard agar driven by A-motility. This reverses at high casitone concentration (1–3.2%) such that swarming on soft agar is much faster than swarming on hard agar. This pattern greatly constrained the ability of M. xanthus to encounter patches of prey bacteria on a soft agar surface when nutrient levels between the patches were low. The swarming patterns of a strain that is unable to produce extracellular fibrils indicate that these appendages are responsible for the elevated swarming of S-motility at high resource levels. Together, these data suggest that large contributions by S-motility to predatory swarming in natural soils may be limited to soft, wet, high-nutrient conditions that may be uncommon. Several likely benefits of S-motility to the M. xanthus life cycle are discussed, including synergistic interactions with A-motility across a wide variety of conditions.