ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2017
Microbial competition in porous environments can select against rapid biofilm growth.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers.
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Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 138 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Two worlds beneath: Distinct microbial strategies of the rock-attached and planktonic subsurface biosphere.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Quorum sensing regulates a polysaccharide biosynthesis gene to control cell aggregation inISME communications · 2026Article
- Microenvironments on individual sand grains enhance nitrogen loss in coastal sediments.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The mitigation of spatial constraint in porous environments enhances biofilm phylogenetic and functional diversity.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Pore-scale mass transfer heterogeneity shapes nutrient accessibility and functional assembly in porous microbial ecosystems.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Nutrient colimitation is a quantitative, dynamic property of microbial populations.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Wild-Type Domestication: Loss of Intrinsic Metabolic Traits Concealed by Culture in Rich Media.Microbial ecology · 2024Article
- Fluid flow drives phenotypic heterogeneity in bacterial growth and adhesion on surfaces.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Collective peroxide detoxification determines microbial mutation rate plasticity in E. coli.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Computational and experimental strategies for combating MBLSaudi journal of biological sciences · 2024Article
- Mechanics limits ecological diversity and promotes heterogeneity in confined bacterial communities.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Multiscale Porosity Microfluidics to Study Bacterial Transport in Heterogeneous Chemical Landscapes.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Microbes in porous environments: from active interactions to emergent feedback.Biophysical reviews · 2024Review
- Microfluidic approaches in microbial ecology.Lab on a chip · 2024Review
- Strategies and materials for the prevention and treatment of biofilms.Materials today. Bio · 2023Review
- Cooperative microbial interactions drive spatial segregation in porous environments.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Vertical growth dynamics of biofilms.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Ultraviolet control of bacterial biofilms in microfluidic chips.Biomicrofluidics · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
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Abstract
Microbes often live in dense communities called biofilms, where competition between strains and species is fundamental to both evolution and community function. Although biofilms are commonly found in soil-like porous environments, the study of microbial interactions has largely focused on biofilms growing on flat, planar surfaces. Here, we use microfluidic experiments, mechanistic models, and game theory to study how porous media hydrodynamics can mediate competition between bacterial genotypes. Our experiments reveal a fundamental challenge faced by microbial strains that live in porous environments: cells that rapidly form biofilms tend to block their access to fluid flow and redirect resources to competitors. To understand how these dynamics influence the evolution of bacterial growth rates, we couple a model of flow-biofilm interaction with a game theory analysis. This investigation revealed that hydrodynamic interactions between competing genotypes give rise to an evolutionarily stable growth rate that stands in stark contrast with that observed in typical laboratory experiments: cells within a biofilm can outcompete other genotypes by growing more slowly. Our work reveals that hydrodynamics can profoundly affect how bacteria compete and evolve in porous environments, the habitat where most bacteria live.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.