Dataset Information

Housekeeping mutualisms: do more symbionts facilitate host performance?

ABSTRACT: Mutualisms often involve one host supporting multiple symbionts, whose identity, density and intraguild interactions can influence the nature of the mutualism and performance of the host. However, the implications of multiple co-occurring symbionts on services to a host have rarely been quantified. In this study, we quantified effects of decapod symbionts on removal of sediment from their coral host. Our field survey showed that all common symbionts typically occur as pairs and never at greater abundances. Two species, the crab Trapezia serenei and the shrimp Alpheus lottini, were most common and co-occurred more often than expected by chance. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to test for effects of decapod identity and density on sediment removal. Alone, corals removed 10% of sediment, but removal increased to 30% and 48% with the presence of two and four symbionts, respectively. Per-capita effects of symbionts were independent of density and identity. Our results suggest that symbiont density is restricted by intraspecific competition. Thus, increased sediment removal from a coral host can only be achieved by increasing the number of species of symbionts on that coral, even though these species are functionally equivalent. Symbiont diversity plays a key role, not through added functionality but by overcoming density limitation likely imposed by intraspecific mating systems.

SUBMITTER: Stier AC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3327697 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Housekeeping mutualisms: do more symbionts facilitate host performance?

Stier Adrian C AC Gil Michael A MA McKeon C Seabird CS Lemer Sarah S Leray Matthieu M Mills Suzanne C SC Osenberg Craig W CW

PloS one 20120416 4

Mutualisms often involve one host supporting multiple symbionts, whose identity, density and intraguild interactions can influence the nature of the mutualism and performance of the host. However, the implications of multiple co-occurring symbionts on services to a host have rarely been quantified. In this study, we quantified effects of decapod symbionts on removal of sediment from their coral host. Our field survey showed that all common symbionts typically occur as pairs and never at greater ...[more]

PMID: 22523536

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Project description:Microbiomes often benefit plants, conferring resistance to pathogens, improving stress tolerance, or promoting plant growth. As potential plant mutualists, however, microbiomes are not a single organism but a community of species with complex interactions among microbial taxa and between microbes and their shared host. The nature of ecological interactions among microbes in the microbiome can have important consequences for the net effects of microbiomes on hosts. Here, we compared the effects of individual microbial strains and 10-strain synthetic communities on microbial productivity and host growth using the common duckweed Lemna minor and a synthetic, simplified version of its native microbiome. Except for Pseudomonas protegens, which was a mutualist when tested alone, all of the single strains we tested were commensals on hosts, benefiting from plant presence but not increasing host growth relative to uninoculated controls. However, 10-strain synthetic microbial communities increased both microbial productivity and duckweed growth more than the average single-strain inoculation and uninoculated controls, meaning that host-microbiome mutualisms can emerge from community interactions among microbes on hosts. The effects of community inoculation were sub-additive, suggesting at least some competition among microbes in the duckweed microbiome. We also investigated the relationship between L. minor fitness and that of its microbes, providing some of the first empirical estimates of broad fitness alignment between plants and members of their microbiomes; hosts grew faster with more productive microbes or microbiomes.ImportanceThere is currently substantial interest in engineering synthetic microbiomes for health or agricultural applications. One key question is how multi-strain microbial communities differ from single microbial strains in their productivity and effects on hosts. We tested 20 single bacterial strains and 2 distinct 10-strain synthetic communities on plant hosts and found that 10-strain communities led to faster host growth and greater microbial productivity than the average, but not the best, single strain. Furthermore, the microbial strains or communities that achieved the greatest cell densities were also the most beneficial to their hosts, showing that both specific single strains and multi-strain synthetic communities can engage in high-quality mutualisms with their hosts. Our results suggest that ~5% of single strains, as well as multi-strain synthetic communities comprised largely of commensal microbes, can benefit hosts and result in effective host-microbe mutualisms.

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Housekeeping mutualisms: do more symbionts facilitate host performance?

Publications

Housekeeping mutualisms: do more symbionts facilitate host performance?

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