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

El Baidouri, F., Venditti, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6776-2355 and Humphries, S. (2016) Independent evolution of shape and motility allows evolutionary flexibility in Firmicutes bacteria. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1 (1). 0009. ISSN 2397-334X doi: 10.1038/s41559-016-0009

Abstract/Summary

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.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/68268
Identification Number/DOI	10.1038/s41559-016-0009
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Publisher	Nature
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