ArticlemBio2017
Division of Labor, Bet Hedging, and the Evolution of Mixed Biofilm Investment Strategies.
Article in mBio, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- A nutrient bottleneck controls antibiotic efficacy in structured bacterial populations.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Potential Use of Selected Natural Compounds with Anti-Biofilm Activity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Intrinsic antimicrobial resistance: Molecular biomaterials to combat microbial biofilms and bacterial persisters.Biomaterials · 2024Review
- Insights onMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- Trade-offs, trade-ups, and high mutational parallelism underlie microbial adaptation during extreme cycles of feast and famine.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
- A genetic switch controls Pseudomonas aeruginosa surface colonization.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- Opportunities in optical and electrical single-cell technologies to study microbial ecosystems.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Review
- A cryptic transcription factor regulates Caulobacter adhesin development.PLoS genetics · 2022Article
- Bet-hedging in innate and adaptive immune systems.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2022Article
- Structured environments foster competitor coexistence by manipulating interspecies interfaces.PLoS computational biology · 2021Article
- Raman Spectroscopy-Based Measurements of Single-Cell Phenotypic Diversity in Microbial Populations.mSphere · 2020Article
- Article
- In silico bacteria evolve robust cooperaion via complex quorum-sensing strategies.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Trade-offs between gene expression, growth and phenotypic diversity in microbial populations.Current opinion in biotechnology · 2020Review
- Multicellular behaviour enables cooperation in microbial cell aggregates.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Article
- The small non-coding RNA RsaE influences extracellular matrix composition in Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilm communities.PLoS pathogens · 2019Article
- Bacterial surface colonization, preferential attachment and fitness under periodic stress.PLoS computational biology · 2019Article
- Structured environments fundamentally alter dynamics and stability of ecological communities.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Bacterial cells, like many other organisms, face a tradeoff between longevity and fecundity. Planktonic cells are fast growing and fragile, while biofilm cells are often slower growing but stress resistant. Here we ask why bacterial lineages invest simultaneously in both fast- and slow-growing types. We develop a population dynamic model of lineage expansion across a patchy environment and find that mixed investment is favored across a broad range of environmental conditions, even when transmission is entirely via biofilm cells. This mixed strategy is favored because of a division of labor where exponentially dividing planktonic cells can act as an engine for the production of future biofilm cells, which grow more slowly. We use experimental evolution to test our predictions and show that phenotypic heterogeneity is persistent even under selection for purely planktonic or purely biofilm transmission. Furthermore, simulations suggest that maintenance of a biofilm subpopulation serves as a cost-effective hedge against environmental uncertainty, which is also consistent with our experimental findings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.