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Trait data for the evolution of plasticity in pairwise competitive and mutualistic community of brewer's yeast

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Sep 10, 2024 version files 520.04 KB

Abstract

Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to change their phenotypes in response to changing local conditions quickly in order to better function.  Plasticity in response to abitoic factors such as temperature, light, and salinity for example have been well documented.  What is less clear is how species interactions can influence the evolution of phenotypic plasticitiy as species adapt and interact with one another.  To study this question we used a synthetic mutualism based on genetically modified brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) that overproduce a certain resource but cannot produce one needed by its partner strain.  In this study system, we paired one yeast strain that overproduces adenine, but cannot produce lysine, and another strain that overproduces lysine but cannot produce adenine. When placed together in media they can cross feed one another and form a mutualism.  We also paired strains that just had a knockout for adenine or lysine under competition.  The goal of the study was to examine how phenotypic plasticity in growth rate and resource use efficiency changed after four weeks of evolution in continuous culture.

We compared changes in growth rate, resource use efficiency and their plasticity for strains grown alone or with a mutualistic or competitive partner. Strains grown with a competitor had changes in growth rate, while those grown with a mutualist had changes in resource use efficiency.  Plasticity for these traits changed very little, suggesting that there was not strong selection on plasticity evolution. This dataset and R code used to analyze the evolution of growth rate and yield and their plasticities from pairwise communities of brewer's year evolved with a competitor or mutualist partner strain.