Quantifying the Adaptive Potential of a Nascent Bacterial Community

Abstract

The fitness effects of all possible mutations available to an organism largely shapes the dynamics of evolutionary adaptation. Tremendous progress has been made in quantifying the strength and abundance of selected mutations available to single microbial species in simple environments, lacking strong ecological interactions. However, the adaptive potential of strains that are part of multi-strain communities remains largely unclear. We sought to fill this gap by analyzing a stable community of two closely related ecotypes ("L" and "S") shortly after they emerged within the E. coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE). We engineered genome-wide barcoded transposon libraries to measure the fitness effects of all possible gene knockouts in the coexisting strains as well as their ancestor, for many different, ecologically relevant conditions. We found that the fitness effects of many gene knockouts sensitively depends on the genetic background and the ecological conditions, as set by the abiotic environment and relative frequency of both ecotypes. Despite the idiosyncratic behavior of individual knockouts, we still see consistent statistical patterns of fitness effect variation across both genetic background and community composition. Genes that are in the same operon, or that strongly interact with each other, are more likely to be correlated with each other across backgrounds compared to random pairs of genes. Additionally, fitness effects are correlated with evolutionary outcomes for a number of conditions, possibly revealing shifting patterns of adaptation. Together, our results reveal how ecological and epistatic effects combine to drive adaptive potential in a nascent ecological community.