Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29899074›Full record

ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2018

The distribution of bacterial doubling times in the wild.

Beth Gibson, Daniel J Wilson, Edward Feil, Adam Eyre-Walker

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 129 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
129citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
23.0field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

129 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 281 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
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  19. Multiplexed PCR to measureApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025
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  20. Article

69 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.

Beth GibsonSchool of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK.ORCID 0000-0001-7984-6188
Daniel J WilsonNuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-0940-3311
Edward FeilThe Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-1446-6744
Adam Eyre-WalkerSchool of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK a.c.eyre-walker@sussex.ac.uk.ORCID 0000-0001-5527-8729
University of Sussex · GBJohn Radcliffe Hospital · GBUniversity of Bath · GB

Funding

Wellcome Trust 101237/Z/13/Z
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Generation time varies widely across organisms and is an important factor in the life cycle, life history and evolution of organisms. Although the doubling time (DT) has been estimated for many bacteria in the laboratory, it is nearly impossible to directly measure it in the natural environment. However, an estimate can be obtained by measuring the rate at which bacteria accumulate mutations per year in the wild and the rate at which they mutate per generation in the laboratory. If we assume the mutation rate per generation is the same in the wild and in the laboratory, and that all mutations in the wild are neutral, an assumption that we show is not very important, then an estimate of the DT can be obtained by dividing the latter by the former. We estimate the DT for five species of bacteria for which we have both an accumulation and a mutation rate estimate. We also infer the distribution of DTs across all bacteria from the distribution of the accumulation and mutation rates. Both analyses suggest that DTs for bacteria in the wild are substantially greater than those in the laboratory, that they vary by orders of magnitude between different species of bacteria and that a substantial fraction of bacteria double very slowly in the wild.

Indexed as

Bacterial Physiological PhenomenaMutation RateModels, BiologicalPopulation Dynamicsbacteriageneration timemutation rates

Identifiers

PMID29899074
PMCPMC6015860
OpenAlexW2767681553

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.