Biomedical subjects

Frederick M Cohan

Publications and source records attributed to Frederick M Cohan.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Towards a conceptual and operational union of bacterial systematics, ecology, and evolution.

To completely understand the ecology of a bacterial community, we need to identify its ecologically distinct populations (ecotypes). The greatest promise for enumerating a community's constituent ecotypes is held by molecular approaches that identify bacterial ecotypes as DNA sequence clusters. These approaches succeed when ecotypes correspond with sequence clusters, but some models of bacterial speciation predict a one-to-many and others a many-to-one relationship between ecotypes and sequence clusters. A further challenge is that sequence-based phylogenies often contain a hierarchy of clusters and subclusters within clusters, and there is no widely accepted theory to guide systematists and ecologists to the size of cluster most likely to correspond to ecotypes. While present systematics attempts to use universal thresholds of sequence divergence to help demarcate species, the recently developed 'community phylogeny' approach assumes no universal thresholds, but demarcates ecotypes based on the analysis of a lineage's evolutionary dynamics. Theory-based approaches like this one can give a conceptual framework as well as operational criteria for hypothesizing the identity and membership of ecotypes from sequence data; ecology-based approaches can then confirm that the putative ecotypes are actually ecologically distinct. Bacterial ecotypes that are demonstrated to have a history of coexistence as ecologically distinct lineages (based on sequence analysis) and as a prognosis of future coexistence (based on ecological differences), are the fundamental units of bacterial ecology and evolution, and should be recognized by bacterial systematics.

Bacteria↗

PubMed2006

Cyanobacterial ecotypes in the microbial mat community of Mushroom Spring (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming) as species-like units linking microbial community composition, structure and function.

We have investigated microbial mats of alkaline siliceous hot springs in Yellowstone National Park as natural model communities to learn how microbial populations group into species-like fundamental units. Here, we bring together empirical patterns of the distribution of molecular variation in predominant mat cyanobacterial populations, theory-based modelling of how to demarcate phylogenetic clusters that correspond to ecological species and the dynamic patterns of the physical and chemical microenvironments these populations inhabit and towards which they have evolved adaptations. We show that putative ecotypes predicted by the theory-based model correspond well with distribution patterns, suggesting populations with distinct ecologies, as expected of ecological species. Further, we show that increased molecular resolution enhances our ability to detect ecotypes in this way, though yet higher molecular resolution is probably needed to detect all ecotypes in this microbial community.

Adaptation, Biological↗

PubMed2005

Opinion: Re-evaluating prokaryotic species.

There is no widely accepted concept of species for prokaryotes, and assignment of isolates to species is based on measures of phenotypic or genome similarity. The current methods for defining prokaryotic species are inadequate and incapable of keeping pace with the levels of diversity that are being uncovered in nature. Prokaryotic taxonomy is being influenced by advances in microbial population genetics, ecology and genomics, and by the ease with which sequence data can be obtained. Here, we review the classical approaches to prokaryotic species definition and discuss the current and future impact of multilocus nucleotide-sequence-based approaches to prokaryotic systematics. We also consider the potential, and difficulties, of assigning species status to biologically or ecologically meaningful sequence clusters.

Bacteria↗

PubMed2003

Gradual evolution in bacteria: evidence from Bacillus systematics.

The bacterial genome projects have suggested a central role for horizontal transfer in bacterial adaptation, but it is difficult to rule out an adaptive role for ordinary genetic change in existing genes. The bacterial systematics literature can readily address the importance of gene acquisition in adaptive evolution, since phenotypic characterization typically assesses presence versus absence of metabolic capabilities, and metabolic gains and losses are most likely due to horizontal transfer and/or gene loss. Bacterial systematists have not geared their studies toward quantitative differences in metabolic capabilities, which are more likely to involve adjustments of existing genes. Here, quantitative variation in metabolism within and between three closely related Bacillus taxa has been assayed. While these taxa show no qualitative (i.e. presence versus absence) differences in resource utilization, they are quantitatively different in utilization of 8 % of 95 resources tested. Moreover, 93 % of the resources tested showed significant quantitative variation among strains within a single taxon. These results suggest that ordinary genetic changes in existing genes may play an important role in adaptation. If these results are typical, future genomically based assays of quantitative variation in phenotype (e.g. microarray analysis of mRNA concentrations) may identify hundreds of genes whose expression has been modified. A protocol is presented for identifying those modifications of gene expression and those gene acquisitions that are most likely to have played a role in adaptive evolution.

Adaptation, Physiological↗

PubMed2002

What are bacterial species?

Bacterial systematics has not yet reached a consensus for defining the fundamental unit of biological diversity, the species. The past half-century of bacterial systematics has been characterized by improvements in methods for demarcating species as phenotypic and genetic clusters, but species demarcation has not been guided by a theory-based concept of species. Eukaryote systematists have developed a universal concept of species: A species is a group of organisms whose divergence is capped by a force of cohesion; divergence between different species is irreversible; and different species are ecologically distinct. In the case of bacteria, these universal properties are held not by the named species of systematics but by ecotypes. These are populations of organisms occupying the same ecological niche, whose divergence is purged recurrently by natural selection. These ecotypes can be discovered by several universal sequence-based approaches. These molecular methods suggest that a typical named species contains many ecotypes, each with the universal attributes of species. A named bacterial species is thus more like a genus than a species.

Bacteria↗

PubMed2002

Sexual isolation and speciation in bacteria.

Like organisms from all other walks of life, bacteria are capable of sexual recombination. However, unlike most plants and animals, bacteria recombine only rarely, and when they do they are extremely promiscuous in their choice of sexual partners. There may be no absolute constraints on the evolutionary distances that can be traversed through recombination in the bacterial world, but interspecies recombination is reduced by a variety of factors, including ecological isolation, behavioral isolation, obstacles to DNA entry, restriction endonuclease activity, resistance to integration of divergent DNA sequences, reversal of recombination by mismatch repair, and functional incompatibility of recombined segments. Typically, individual bacterial species are genetically variable for most of these factors. Therefore, natural selection can modulate levels of sexual isolation, to increase the transfer of genes useful to the recipient while minimizing the transfer of harmful genes. Interspecies recombination is optimized when recombination involves short segments that are just long enough to transfer an adaptation, without co-transferring potentially harmful DNA flanking the adaptation. Natural selection has apparently acted to reduce sexual isolation between bacterial species. Evolution of sexual isolation is not a milestone toward speciation in bacteria, since bacterial recombination is too rare to oppose adaptive divergence between incipient species. Ironically, recombination between incipient bacterial species may actually foster the speciation process, by prohibiting one incipient species from out-competing the other to extinction. Interspecific recombination may also foster speciation by introducing novel gene loci from divergent species, allowing invasion of new niches.

Bacteria↗