ArticleNature ecology & evolution2018
Ecological suicide in microbes.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cross-feeding enables robust coexistence between four bacterial species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- It takes a village: how plant-associated bacterial communities socialise to shape plant growth and health.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Review
- Deciphering themSphere · 2026Article
- Article
- Mutations in filamentous bacteriophages spark eco-evolutionary feedbacks in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Emergence of alternative states in a synthetic human gut microbial community.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Strengthen or Weaken: Evolutionary Directions of Cross-Feeding After Formation.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Review
- Co-cultivation rescues suicidal Paenibacillus amylolyticus swarms.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Environment-mediated interactions cause an externalized and collective memory in bacteria.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- pH Adaptation stabilizes bacterial communities.npj biodiversity · 2024Article
- Article
- Grow now, pay later: When should a bacterium go into debt?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- The interplay between microbial communities and soil properties.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2024Review
- A synthetic microbial Daisyworld: planetary regulation in the test tube.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Two-tiered mutualism improves survival and competitiveness of cross-feeding soil bacteria.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Starvation responses impact interaction dynamics of human gut bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and Roseburia intestinalis.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Eco-evolutionary dynamics in microbial interactions.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- Experimental community coalescence sheds light on microbial interactions in soil and restores impaired functions.Microbiome · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The growth and survival of organisms often depend on interactions between them. In many cases, these interactions are positive and caused by a cooperative modification of the environment. Examples are the cooperative breakdown of complex nutrients in microbes or the construction of elaborate architectures in social insects, in which the individual profits from the collective actions of her peers. However, organisms can similarly display negative interactions by changing the environment in ways that are detrimental for them, for example by resource depletion or the production of toxic byproducts. Here we find an extreme type of negative interactions, in which Paenibacillus sp. bacteria modify the environmental pH to such a degree that it leads to a rapid extinction of the whole population, a phenomenon that we call ecological suicide. Modification of the pH is more pronounced at higher population densities, and thus ecological suicide is more likely to occur with increasing bacterial density. Correspondingly, promoting bacterial growth can drive populations extinct whereas inhibiting bacterial growth by the addition of harmful substances-such as antibiotics-can rescue them. Moreover, ecological suicide can cause oscillatory dynamics, even in single-species populations. We found ecological suicide in a wide variety of microbes, suggesting that it could have an important role in microbial ecology and evolution.
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Registered trials
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