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Independent evolution of shape and motility allows evolutionary flexibility in Firmicutes bacteria

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 1, Article number: 0009 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

Functional morphological adaptation is an implicit assumption across many ecological studies. However, despite a few pioneering attempts to link bacterial form and function, functional morphology is largely unstudied in prokaryotes. One intriguing candidate for analysis is bacterial shape, as multiple lines of theory indicate that cell shape and motility should be strongly correlated. Here we present a large-scale use of modern phylogenetic comparative methods to explore this relationship across 325 species of the phylum Firmicutes. In contrast to clear predictions from theory, we show that cell shape and motility are not coupled, and that transitions to and from flagellar motility are common and strongly associated with lifestyle (free-living or host-associated). We find no association between shape and lifestyle, and contrary to recent evidence, no indication that shape is associated with pathogenicity. Our results suggest that the independent evolution of shape and motility in this group might allow a greater evolutionary flexibility.

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Figure 1: Phylogenetic distribution of phenotypic data and transition rate estimates.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Pagel, O. Guadayol Roig, R. Schuech, J. Baker and A. Meade for helpful comments and advice. This work is financially supported by The Leverhulme Trust project RLA RL-2012-022, ‘Form and function in a microbial world’, granted to S.H. C.V. was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (RPG-2013-185).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, University of Lincoln, Joseph Banks Laboratories, Green Lane, Lincoln, LN6 7DL, UK

    Fouad El Baidouri & Stuart Humphries

  2. School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BX, UK

    Chris Venditti

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  1. Fouad El Baidouri
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Contributions

S.H., C.V. and F.E.B. designed the study; F.E.B. and S.H. developed the protocol for the data collection; F.E.B. collected the data and F.E.B., C.V. and S.H. analysed the data; F.E.B. wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors contributed substantially to revisions.

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Correspondence to Fouad El Baidouri.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figures 1–6; Supplementary Tables 1–3. (PDF 936 kb)

Supplementary phylogenetic tree

Phylogenetic tree of 325 Firmicutes species in Newick format. (TXT 17 kb)

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El Baidouri, F., Venditti, C. & Humphries, S. Independent evolution of shape and motility allows evolutionary flexibility in Firmicutes bacteria. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 0009 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-016-0009

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