Kevin M Archibald, Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Charlotte Laufkötter, Holly V Moeller
{"title":"Evolution Promotes Resilience of Marine Mixotrophic Metabolic Strategies to Thermal Stress.","authors":"Kevin M Archibald, Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Charlotte Laufkötter, Holly V Moeller","doi":"10.1086/737132","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>AbstractWarming induces metabolic changes in microbial organisms, including increased respiration. Empirical studies have shown that evolution can compensate for thermal sensitivity and reduce respiration rate at high temperatures. Evolutionary adaptation may mitigate the effects of warming, but it remains unclear to what extent organisms can overcome thermodynamic constraints through evolution. Furthermore, evolutionary adaptations are modulated by interactions with plastic changes to respiration and other metabolic traits. We develop a mechanistic model including both evolution and metabolic plasticity to explore how adaptation to temperature affects variability in metabolic traits in mixotrophic marine microorganisms under thermal stress. By combining modeling with empirical data, we show that variability in metabolic activity between mixotrophs with different temperature histories can be explained by changes to the carbon budget facilitated by evolved reductions in respiration. The model suggests that evolution enhances thermal resilience over evolutionary timescales. Evolving mixotrophs exhibit less metabolic variability in response to temperature changes. In contrast, over shorter timescales plastic responses dominate over evolutionary adaptations, producing transient changes to metabolic activity following a temperature change. These results highlight the interplay between different biological adaptive mechanisms and provide a modeling framework for representing variability in microbial metabolism in the context of climate change.</p>","PeriodicalId":50800,"journal":{"name":"American Naturalist","volume":"206 4","pages":"375-384"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Naturalist","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1086/737132","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/7/29 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
AbstractWarming induces metabolic changes in microbial organisms, including increased respiration. Empirical studies have shown that evolution can compensate for thermal sensitivity and reduce respiration rate at high temperatures. Evolutionary adaptation may mitigate the effects of warming, but it remains unclear to what extent organisms can overcome thermodynamic constraints through evolution. Furthermore, evolutionary adaptations are modulated by interactions with plastic changes to respiration and other metabolic traits. We develop a mechanistic model including both evolution and metabolic plasticity to explore how adaptation to temperature affects variability in metabolic traits in mixotrophic marine microorganisms under thermal stress. By combining modeling with empirical data, we show that variability in metabolic activity between mixotrophs with different temperature histories can be explained by changes to the carbon budget facilitated by evolved reductions in respiration. The model suggests that evolution enhances thermal resilience over evolutionary timescales. Evolving mixotrophs exhibit less metabolic variability in response to temperature changes. In contrast, over shorter timescales plastic responses dominate over evolutionary adaptations, producing transient changes to metabolic activity following a temperature change. These results highlight the interplay between different biological adaptive mechanisms and provide a modeling framework for representing variability in microbial metabolism in the context of climate change.
期刊介绍:
Since its inception in 1867, The American Naturalist has maintained its position as one of the world''s premier peer-reviewed publications in ecology, evolution, and behavior research. Its goals are to publish articles that are of broad interest to the readership, pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop conceptual unification, and change the way people think. AmNat emphasizes sophisticated methodologies and innovative theoretical syntheses—all in an effort to advance the knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles.