ArticleNature microbiology2025
Risk-reward trade-off during carbon starvation generates dichotomy in motility endurance among marine bacteria.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Physical encounters impose a consistency-amount trade-off on bacterial group formation in marine environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Article
- Light-activated cAMP signaling controls sodium-driven motility inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Stochastic resilience enables particle foraging in oligotrophic marine environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Risk-reward trade-off during carbon starvation generates dichotomy in motility endurance among marine bacteria.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Copiotrophic marine bacteria contribute to the control of carbon storage in the ocean by remineralizing organic matter. Motility presents copiotrophs with a risk-reward trade-off: it is highly beneficial in seeking out sparse nutrient hotspots, but energetically costly. Here we studied the motility endurance of 26 marine isolates, representing 18 species, using video microscopy and cell tracking over 2 days of carbon starvation. We found that the trade-off results in a dichotomy among marine bacteria, in which risk-averse copiotrophs ceased motility within hours ('limostatic'), whereas risk-prone copiotrophs converted ~9% of their biomass per day into energy to retain motility for the 2 days of observation ('limokinetic'). Using machine learning classifiers, we identified a genomic component associated with both strategies, sufficiently robust to predict the response of additional species with 86% accuracy. This dichotomy can help predict the prevalence of foraging strategies in marine microbes and inform models of ocean carbon cycles.
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