The Effects of Coevolutionary History on Mutualistic Spatial Assortment in Yeast
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Yin, Kristine
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When species interact consistently with one another in order to derive mutual benefit, their coevolutionary history is closely tied with the dynamics governing the mutualistic relationship between the species. Partner specificity can strongly influence the dynamics of mutualistic relationships, and over time, patterns of partner recognition and specialization can have an impact on spatial structure and distribution of partners. Although some work has been done in researching how spatial structure alters mutualistic relationships, we lack a strong understanding of how coevolution and shared evolutionary history contributes to these processes. This project seeks to fill that gap by integrating these areas of knowledge. Using experimentally evolved populations of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae under pairwise (favoring specialists), diffuse (favoring generalists), and control conditions, and using fluorescently tagged strains, we tested partner recognition by analyzing spatial structure in co-cultures through fluorescence microscopy. Contrary to our initial hypotheses, we found that all evolved lineages, including the controls, had evolved towards increasing homogeneity and lack of distinct spatial structure when compared to the ancestors. This convergence towards homogeneity despite differing conditions and coevolutionary history indicates that spatial structure between cooperative species is governed not only by partner recognition, but may also be significantly impacted early interactions governed by genetic variation, competition for secreted goods among an individual strain, or other factors governing the cooperative interactions between partners.
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Undergraduate Research Option Thesis