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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Dynamics of local adaptation in a stable environmental gradient

Edvin Memet

Ned S. Wingreen

Yigal Meir

  • Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

  • Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA and Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

  • Department of Physics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel and Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

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Phys. Rev. Research 3, L042026 – Published 17 November, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L042026

Abstract

Microbial populations in nature generally inhabit extended environments with substantial spatial variation in ecological factors: light intensity in the ocean, temperature in geothermal hot springs, or a variety of chemical concentrations including salt and pH. In such continuously varying environments, it remains unclear why a finite number of subpopulations form and how this number is set. Here we show that a model of asexual evolution in a gradient maps onto a no-gradient neutral model, and by mapping this model to a gas of kinks and antikinks, we derive the full distribution of the number of coexisting lineages, and their correlation functions. Testing these predictions in controlled laboratory experiments would provide valuable insights into many real-world microbial communities.

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Phys. Rev. Research 3, L042026– Published 17 November, 2021
  • Received 28 March 2021
  • Revised 13 September 2021
  • Accepted 12 October 2021
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