ArticlePLoS computational biology2021
Mechanistic model of nutrient uptake explains dichotomy between marine oligotrophic and copiotrophic bacteria.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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27 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Soil microbial growth rate, trophic strategy, and the oligotroph-copiotroph continuum.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Growth characteristics of natural microbial populations are skewed toward bacteria with low specific growth rates.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Influence of Environment and Rootstock On the Rhizosphere Bacterial Communities in Four Vineyards of the Douro Demarcated Region.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Uncovering the ecophysiological potential of Motilimonas through genomic profiling analysis.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Stochastic resilience enables particle foraging in oligotrophic marine environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Exceptionally stable membrane lipid composition of the marine facultative anaerobe and piezotolerant 'Labilibaculum euxinus' under variable pressure and nutrients.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Bioremediation of oil contaminants from the marine ecosystem by Alcanivorax borkumensis: an overview.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Integration of Microbial Metabolic Regulation and Abiotic Oxidation: Mechanisms of Artificial Humic Acid-Enhanced Hydroxyl Radical Generation in Paddy Soil.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Maintenance of cytoplasmic and membrane densities shapes cellular geometry in Escherichia coli.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Decoding the genetic drivers of marine bacterial blooms through comparative genomics.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Linking Cell Size, VEnvironmental microbiology reports · 2025Article
- Revisiting the classical biodiversity-ecosystem functioning and stability relationships in microbial microcosms.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Bacterial clustering amplifies the reshaping of eutrophic plumes around marine particles: A hybrid data-driven model.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Effect of Light Regime onJournal of microbiology and biotechnology · 2024Article
- Predictions of rhizosphere microbiome dynamics with a genome-informed and trait-based energy budget model.Nature microbiology · 2024Article
- Relationships between intrinsic population growth rate, carrying capacity and metabolism in microbial populations.The ISME journal · 2023Review
- Understanding the Effect of Different Glucose Concentrations in the Oligotrophic BacteriumMicroorganisms · 2023Article
- Mechanistic constraints on the trade-off between photosynthesis and respiration in response to warming.Science advances · 2023Article
- Warmer temperatures favor slower-growing bacteria in natural marine communities.Science advances · 2023Article
- Tracking nitrogen allocation to proteome biosynthesis in a marine microbial community.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Marine bacterial diversity is immense and believed to be driven in part by trade-offs in metabolic strategies. Here we consider heterotrophs that rely on organic carbon as an energy source and present a molecular-level model of cell metabolism that explains the dichotomy between copiotrophs-which dominate in carbon-rich environments-and oligotrophs-which dominate in carbon-poor environments-as the consequence of trade-offs between nutrient transport systems. While prototypical copiotrophs, like Vibrios, possess numerous phosphotransferase systems (PTS), prototypical oligotrophs, such as SAR11, lack PTS and rely on ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, which use binding proteins. We develop models of both transport systems and use them in proteome allocation problems to predict the optimal nutrient uptake and metabolic strategy as a function of carbon availability. We derive a Michaelis-Menten approximation of ABC transport, analytically demonstrating how the half-saturation concentration is a function of binding protein abundance. We predict that oligotrophs can attain nanomolar half-saturation concentrations using binding proteins with only micromolar dissociation constants and while closely matching transport and metabolic capacities. However, our model predicts that this requires large periplasms and that the slow diffusion of the binding proteins limits uptake. Thus, binding proteins are critical for oligotrophic survival yet severely constrain growth rates. We propose that this trade-off fundamentally shaped the divergent evolution of oligotrophs and copiotrophs.
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