Abstract
Doolittle (Biol Philos 28(2):351–378, 2013) and Ereshefsky and Pedroso (Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:10126–10132, 2013) argue that selection can act at the level of biofilms and other microbial communities. Clarke (Biol Philos 191–212, 2016) is skeptical and argues that selection acts on microbial cells rather than microbial communities. Her main criticism is that biofilms lack one of the ingredients required for selection to operate: heritability. This paper replies to her concern by elaborating how biofilm-level traits can be inheritable
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This is not to say that biofilms have the same heritability as sexual organisms. My main point is that aggregation does not automatically preclude biofilm-level inheritance.
This is not intended to be a statement of Doolittle’s (2013) position. For Doolittle, inheritance in multispecies consortia can be due to a process akin to cultural evolution.
See Elias and Banin (2012) for further examples.
One might find it instructive to contrast multispecies biofilms formed by aggregation to multispecies consortia in which the partners are transmitted vertically, such as the aphid-B. aphidicola consortium (see above). In the case of vertical transmission, the partners tend to evolve traits that are specific to a particular partner (e.g., gene loss in B. aphidicola). Species in biofilms are expected to be more generalist than species acquired vertically because the same species may interact with different species. Yet, coaggregation mechanisms foster a certain level of specialization because the range of partners that a species in a biofilm is expected to interact with is limited. I thank Clarke for bringing this point up.
References
Clarke E (2016) Levels of selection in biofilms: multispecies biofilms are not evolutionary individuals. Biol Philos 31:191–212
Dal Grande F, Widmer I, Wagner HH, Scheidegger C (2012) Vertical and horizontal photobiont transmission within populations of a lichen symbiosis. Mol Ecol 21(13):3159–3172
Doolittle WF (2013) Microbial neopleomorphism. Biol Philos 28(2):351–378
Eberl L, Tümmler B (2004) Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cepacia in cystic fibrosis: genome evolution, interactions and adaptation. Int J Med Microbiol 294(2):123–131
Elias S, Banin E (2012) Multi-species biofilms: living with friendly neighbors. FEMS Microbiol Rev 36:1–15
Ereshefsky M, Pedroso M (2013) Biological individuality: the case of biofilms. Biol Philos 28:331–349
Ereshefsky M, Pedroso M (2015) Rethinking evolutionary individuality. Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:10126–10132
Godfrey-Smith P (2009) Darwinian populations and natural selection. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Kolenbrander P, Palmer R Jr, Periasamy S, Jakubovics N (2010) Oral multispecies biofilm development and the key role of cell-cell distance. Nat Rev Microbiol 8:471–480
Lewontin R (1970) The units of selection. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 1:1–18
McKenney D, Brown KE, Allison DG (1995) Influence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa exoproducts on virulence factor production in Burkholderia cepacia: evidence of interspecies communication. J Bacteriol 177(23):6989–6992
Reardon-Robinson M, Wu C, Mishra A, Chang C, Bier N, Das A, Ton-That H (2014) Pilus hijacking by a bacterial coaggregation factor critical for oral biofilm development. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111(10):3835–3840
Rickard A, Gilbert P, High N, Kolenbrander P, Handley P (2003) Bacterial coaggregation: an integral process in the development of multi-species biofilms. Trends Microbiol 11:94–100
Riedel K, Hentzer M, Geisenberger O, Huber B, Steidle A, Wu H, Høiby N, Givskov M, Molin S, Eberl L (2001) N-acylhomoserine-lactone-mediated communication between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cepacia in mixed biofilms. Microbiology 147(12):3249–3262
Turnbaugh PJ, Hamady M, Yatsunenko T, Cantarel BL, Duncan A, Ley RE, Sogin ML, Jones WJ, Roe BA, Affourtit JP et al (2008) A core gut microbiome in obese and lean twins. Nature 457:480–484
Williams P et al (2007) Look who’s talking: communication and quorum sensing. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 362:1119–1134
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Marc Ereshefsky for his encouragement and suggestions. I would also like to thank Ellen Clarke, Ford Doolittle and the DC/Maryland History and Philosophy of Biology discussion group for their valuable feedback.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pedroso, M. Inheritance by recruitment. Biol Philos 32, 127–131 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-016-9536-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-016-9536-0