Competition–colonization dynamics in experimental bacterial metacommunities

George Livingston (1) , Miguel Matias (2) , Vincent Calcagno (3) , Claire Barbera (1) , Marine Combe (1) , Mathew A. Leibold (4) , Nicolas Mouquet (1)

1 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
2 Institut des Siences de l' Evolution
3 ISA - Institut Sophia Agrobiotech
4 Section of Integrative Biology

One of the simplest hypotheses used to explain species coexistence is the competition-colonization trade-off, that is, species can stably coexist in a landscape if they show a trade-off between competitive and colonization abilities. Despite extensive theory, the dynamics predicted to result from competition-colonization trade-offs are largely untested. Landscape change, such as habitat destruction, is thought to greatly influence coexistence under competition-colonization dynamics, although there is no formal test of this prediction. Here we present the first illustration of competition-colonization dynamics that fully transposes theory into a controlled experimental metacommunity of two Pseudomonas bacterial strains. The competition-colonization dynamics were achieved by directly manipulating trade-off strength and colonization rates to generate the full range of coexistence conditions and responses to habitat destruction. Our study successfully generates competition-colonization dynamics matching theoretical predictions, and our results further reveal a negative relationship between diversity and productivity when scaling up to entire metacommunities.

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Microbiologie et Parasitologie

George Livingston, Miguel Matias, Vincent Calcagno, Claire Barbera, Marine Combe, et al.. Competition–colonization dynamics in experimental bacterial metacommunities. Nature Communications, 2012, 3 (1234), ⟨10.1038/ncomms2239⟩. ⟨hal-01190285⟩