A long-term experiment is an experimental procedure that runs through a long period of time, in order to test a hypothesis or observe a phenomenon that takes place at an extremely slow rate.
Several agricultural field experiments have run for more than 100 years, but much shorter experiments may qualify as "long-term" in other disciplines. An experiment
is "a set of actions and observations", implying that one or more
treatments (fertilizer, subsidized school lunches, etc.) is imposed on
the system under study. Long-term experiments therefore contrast with
nonexperimental long-term studies in which manipulation of the system
studied is impossible (Jupiter's Great Red Spot) or undesirable (field observations of chimpanzee behavior).
The Godwin Plots experiment at the Wicken Fen reserve in Cambridgeshire,
England, has been running since the 1920s and explores the differences
between areas of vegetation which are never cut, and respectively all
four, three or two years and every year.
Experiments at Rothamsted showed that "grain yields can be
sustained (and even increased) for almost 150 years in monocultures of
wheat and barley given organic or inorganic fertilizer annually". These results show that practices considered unsustainable by some advocates of sustainable agriculture may preserve "the ability of a farm to produce perpetually", at least under some circumstances. But even if crop diversity in space or time (crop rotation)
and organic inputs are not always essential to sustainability, there is
abundant evidence from Rothamsted and elsewhere that they are often
beneficial.
An experiment in alpine pasture has been ongoing in Switzerland at Schynige Platte from the 1920s looking at the human effect on the alpine environment.
The Haughley Experiment was noteworthy as a rare example of a
long-term experiment in organic farming without external inputs of
nutrients. After about 30 years, however, it was decided to start
importing manure. There is some disagreement whether a "decline in
relative yields from the organic section" was due to a depletion of soil
nutrients.
Various short-term experiments have used legumes (in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia)
as a nitrogen source, but good short-term yields do not prove the
system is sustainable. The problem is that release of nitrogen from soil organic matter
can make up any shortfall of nitrogen from legumes for a decade or
more. The Old Rotation showed that nitrogen from legumes can balance
nitrogen removed in a harvested crop over the long term. A key point is
that the nitrogen in the legumes was not removed, as it would be with a
soybean crop, but was plowed under as a green manure. In the Old
Rotation, the green manure was grown during the winter to supply
nitrogen to a summer crop (cotton); this would be less practical in
colder climates.
Long-term agricultural experiments that have been started more recently include the Long-Term Research on Agricultural Systems experiments at UC Davis, started in 1993.
Long-term microbiology experiments
A photo showing the components of the 500-year microbiology experiment
Chroococcidiopsis glass ampoules
At the UK Centre for Astrobiology within The University of Edinburgh and at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine with the German Aerospace Centre, Charles Cockell and Ralf Möller established the "500-Year Microbiology Experiment" that started in July 2014 to study the loss of viability of desiccation-resistant
bacteria over long periods. The experiment involves the study of
vegetative bacteria (the extreme tolerant cyanobacterium, Chroococcidiopsis sp.) and spore-forming bacteria (Bacillus subtilis).
The experiment comprises two oak wooden boxes containing duplicate samples, to be kept at the University of Edinburgh and the Natural History Museum.
Every two years for the next 24 years, triplicate samples of both
organisms contained within glass ampoules will be opened and the number
of viable cells enumerated. The first time point was taken in 2014.
Within each box, the experiment is duplicated into a reduced and
non-reduced background radiation experiment, with one set of samples
being kept in a lead box to cut back background radiation, allowing the
impact of radiation in combination with desiccation on viability to be
studied over long periods. It was motivated by a desire to understand
how microbes survive desiccation in deserts, rocks, permafrost and their
potential survival in space. The destruction and pathways of
degradation of biomolecules will also be studied. In addition to the
core experiment, there are a variety of samples including dried agar
plates and endoliths for investigation over long periods.
One of the wooden boxes was delivered to the Natural History
Museum on 27 February 2015, and will be curated within the
cyanobacterial collection.
In evolutionary biology
The experiments of Richard Lenski on evolution of E. coli have been underway since 1988 for more than 50,000 generations.
Experiments with the evolution of maize under artificial selection for
oil and protein content represent more years, but far fewer generations
(only 65).
The
US National Science Foundation supports a number of long-term
ecological experiments, mostly in ecosystems that are less directly
affected by humans than most agricultural ecosystems are. See LTER. Within the UK the Ecological Continuity Trust
works to promote and secure the future of long-term ecological
experiments, maintaining a register of experiments where treatments have
been applied for a minimum of six years.
A number of other areas, sometimes called involuntary parks, can be regarded as long time ecological experiments, because they have been abandoned by humans and returned to near-feral condition. These include areas abandoned for political reasons, such as the Korean Demilitarized Zone, or environmental contamination, such as the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone.
The Grant Study at the Laboratory of Adult Development in the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, is conducting a longitudinal study of human adult development, by following two groups of individuals as they age (268 Harvard graduates and 456 males from inner-city Boston). The study has been ongoing since 1937 and is currently the longest running study of adult life ever conducted.
The E. coli long-term evolution experiment (LTEE) is an ongoing study in experimental evolution led by Richard Lenski that has been tracking genetic changes in 12 initially identical populations of asexual Escherichia coli bacteria since 24 February 1988. The populations reached the milestone of 50,000 generations in February 2010 and 66,000 in November 2016. Lenski performed the 10,000th transfer of the experiment on March 13, 2017.
Over the course of the experiment, Lenski and his colleagues have
reported a wide array of phenotypic and genotypic changes in the
evolving populations. These have included changes that have occurred in
all 12 populations and others that have only appeared in one or a few
populations. For example, all 12 populations showed a similar pattern of
rapid improvement in fitness that decelerated over time, faster growth
rates, and increased cell size. Half of the populations have evolved
defects in DNA repair that have caused mutator phenotypes marked by
elevated mutation rates. The most striking adaptation reported so far is
the evolution of aerobic growth on citrate, which is unusual in E. coli, in one population at some point between generations 31,000 and 31,500.
Experimental approach
The long-term evolution experiment was designed as an open-ended means of empirical examination of central features of evolution. The experiment was begun with three principal goals:
To examine the dynamics of evolution, including the rate of evolutionary change.
To examine the repeatability of evolution.
To better understand the relationship between change on the phenotypic and genotypic levels.
As the experiment has continued, its scope has grown as new questions
in evolutionary biology have arisen that it can be used to address, as
the populations' evolution has presented new phenomena to study, and as
technology and methodological techniques have advanced.
The use of E. coli as the experimental organism has
allowed many generations and large populations to be studied in a
relatively short period of time. Moreover, due to the long use of E. coli as a principle model organism in molecular biology,
a wide array of tools, protocols, and procedures were available for
studying changes at the genetic, phenotypic, and physiological levels.
The bacteria can also be frozen and preserved while remaining viable.
This has permitted the creation of what Lenski describes as a "frozen
fossil record" of samples of evolving populations that can be revived at
any time. This frozen fossil record allows populations to be restarted
in cases of contamination or other disruption in the experiment, and
permits the isolation and comparison of living exemplars of ancestral
and evolved clones. Lenski chose an E. coli strain that reproduces only asexually, lacks any plasmids that could permit bacterial conjugation, and has no viable prophage. As a consequence, evolution in the experiment occurs only by the core evolutionary processes of mutation, genetic drift, and natural selection. This strict asexuality also means that genetic markers persist in lineages and clades by common descent, but cannot otherwise spread in the populations.
Lenski chose to carry out the experiment with the bacteria grown in a glucose-limited minimal medium called DM25, which was initially developed by Bernard Davis for use in isolating auxotrophic mutants of E. coli using penicillin as a selective agent. DM25 is supplemented with a low concentration of glucose. Lenski chose this concentration to simplify analysis of the populations' evolution by reducing clonal interference, in which multiple versions of alleles are competing in an evolving population, while also reducing the possibility of the evolution of ecological interactions.
This concentration of glucose used supports a maximum population of 500
million cells of the ancestor in a 10 mL culture, though the maximum
now varies among the evolved populations.
DM25 also contains a large amount of citrate (about 11 times the
concentration of glucose), which was originally included by Davis
because it improved the killing efficiency of penicillin during his experiments, though it is now known to aid in E. coli's acquisition of iron from the medium.
Methods
The 12 populations are maintained in a 37 °C (99 °F) incubator in Lenski's laboratory at Michigan State University.
Each day, 1% of each population is transferred to a flask of fresh DM25
growth medium. The dilution means that each population experiences 6.64
generations, or doublings, each day. Large, representative samples of
each population are frozen with glycerol as a cryoprotectant
at 500-generation (75-day) intervals. The bacteria in these samples
remain viable, and can be revived at any time. This collection of
samples is referred to as the "frozen fossil record", and provides a
history of the evolution of each population through the entire
experiment. The populations are also regularly screened for changes in mean fitness, and supplemental experiments are regularly performed to study interesting developments in the populations. As of April 2016, the E. coli populations have been under study for over 64,500 generations, and are thought to have undergone enough spontaneous mutations that every possible single point mutation in the E. coli genome has occurred multiple times.
Founding strain
The strain of E. coli
Lenski chose to use in the long-term evolution experiment was derived
from "strain Bc251", as described in a 1966 paper by Seymour Lederberg,
via Bruce Levin, who had used it in a bacterial ecology experiment in
1972. The defining genetics traits of this strain were: T6r, Strr, r−m−, Ara− (unable to grow on arabinose). Lenski designated the original founding strain as REL606. Before the beginning of the experiment, Lenski isolated an Ara+ variant of the strain in which a point mutation in the araoperon
had restored growth on arabinose, which he designated as strain REL607. When beginning the long-term evolution experiment, Lenski founded six
populations with six individual Ara− colonies of REL606.
These populations are referred to as Ara-1 through Ara-6. Lenski also
founded six more populations from six individual Ara+
colonies of REL607. These are referred to as populations Ara+1 through
Ara+6. The marker differences permit strains to be differentiated on
Tetrazolium Arabinose plates, on which Ara− colonies appear red, while Ara+
colonies appear white to pink. Over the course of the experiment, each
population has accumulated a large number of distinct mutations, which
permit further means of identifying strains by their population of
origin.
Results
Changes in fitness
Timeline of the E. coli
long-term evolution experiment, showing relationship between years and
generations of evolution, as well as significant events and findings.
Much analysis of the experiment has dealt with how the fitness of the
populations relative to their ancestral strain has changed. All
populations showed a pattern of rapid increase in relative fitness
during early generations, with this increase decelerating over time. By
20,000 generations the populations grew approximately 70% faster than
the ancestral strain.
This increase and deceleration in increase has continued in subsequent
generations. A 2013 study by Wiser et al. reported ongoing improvement
at 50,000 generations relative to samples isolated at 40,000
generations. They found that the fitness increase fit to a power law
model much better than the hyperbolic models that had been used
earlier. As a power law model describes an ever-slowing increase that
has no upper limit, while a hyperbolic model implies a hard limit, the
work suggested that the increase would continue without bound as
progressively lower benefit mutations were fixed in the populations.
Further work published in 2015 reported the results of over 1100 new
fitness assays that examined fitness changes through 60,000 generations.
The data once again fit the proposed power law model, and, indeed, fit
within predictions of the model from earlier data. These results suggest
that, contrary to previous thinking, adaptation and adaptive divergence
can potentially increase indefinitely, even in a constant environment.
Genome evolution
Of the 12 populations, six have so far been reported to have developed defects in their ability to repair DNA, greatly increasing the rate of mutation in those strains.
Although the bacteria in each population are thought to have generated
hundreds of millions of mutations over the first 20,000 generations,
Lenski has estimated that within this time frame, only 10 to 20
beneficial mutations achieved fixation in each population, with fewer than 100 total point mutations (including neutral mutations) reaching fixation in each population.
In 2009, Barrick et al. reported the results of genome sequences from
multiple time points in population Ara-1. They found that, unlike the
declining rate of fitness improvement, mutation accumulation was linear
and clock like, even though several lines of evidence suggested that
much of the accumulation was beneficial, rather than neutral.
Evolution of increased cell size in all twelve populations
Growth in cell size of bacteria in the Lenski experiment
All twelve of the experimental populations show an increase in cell
size concurrent with a decline in maximum population density, and in
many of the populations, a more rounded cell shape.[24] This change was partly the result of a mutation that changed the expression of a gene for a penicillin-binding protein,
which allowed the mutant bacteria to outcompete ancestral bacteria
under the conditions in the long-term evolution experiment. However,
although this mutation increased fitness under these conditions, it also increased the bacteria's sensitivity to osmotic stress and decreased their ability to survive long periods in stationary phase cultures.
Ecological specialization
Over
the course of the experiment, the populations have evolved to
specialize on the glucose resource on which they grow. This was first
described in 2000, when Cooper and Lenski demonstrated that all
populations had experienced decay of unused metabolic functions after
20,000 generations, restricting the range of substances on which the
bacteria could grow. Their analysis suggested that this decay was due to
antagonistic pleiotropy, in which mutations that improved ability to grow on glucose had reduced or eliminated the ability to grow on other substances.[25]
A later study by Leiby and Marx that used more advanced techniques
showed that much of the decay Cooper and Lenski had identified were
experimental artifacts, that loss of unused functions was not as
extensive as first thought, and that some unused functions had improved.
Moreover, they concluded that the metabolic losses were not due to
antagonistic pleiotropy, but the neutral accumulation of mutations in
unused portions of the genome, suggesting that adaptation to a simple
environment might not necessarily lead to specialization.
Evolution of balanced polymorphism and simple ecosystems
Two
distinct variants, S and L, were identified in the population
designated Ara-2 at 18,000 generations based on their formation of small
and large colonies, respectively.
Clones of the S and L types could co-exist stably in co-culture with
each other, indicating they occupied distinct niches in the population.
This was verified by the finding that the L type had an advantage during
growth on glucose, but that S had an advantage during stationary phase,
after glucose had run out. The two types were found to have initially
evolved prior to 6,000 generations, and then co-existed thereafter.
Phylogenetic analysis of clones of the two types isolated from
different generations demonstrated that the S and L types belonged to
distinct, co-existing lineages in the population, and might be
undergoing incipient speciation.
Evolution of aerobic citrate usage in one population
Background
The population designated Ara-3 (center) is more turbid because that population evolved to use the citrate present in the growth medium.
E. coli is normally unable to grow aerobically on citrate due to the inability to express a citrate transporter when oxygen is present. However, E. coli has a complete citric acid cycle, and therefore metabolizes citrate as an intermediate during aerobic growth on other substances, including glucose. Most E. coli can grow anaerobically on citrate via fermentation, if a co-substrate such as glucose is available to provide reducing power. The anaerobic growth is possible due to the expression of a transmembrane citrate-succinate antiporter gene, citT, which was first identified in 1998. This gene is co-regulated with other genes involved in citrate fermentation found on the cit operon, which is turned on only when oxygen is absent.
The inability to grow aerobically on citrate, referred to as a Cit− phenotype, is considered a defining characteristic of E. coli as a species, and one that has been a valuable means of differentiating E. coli from pathogenic Salmonella. Although Cit+ strains of E. coli
have been isolated from environmental and agricultural samples, in
every such case, the trait was found to be due to the presence of a
plasmid that carries a foreign citrate transporter. A single, spontaneous Cit+ mutant of E. coli was reported by Hall in 1982.
This mutant had been isolated during prolonged selection for growth on
another novel substance in a growth broth that also contained citrate.
Hall's genetic analysis indicated the underlying mutation was complex,
but he was ultimately unable to identify the precise changes or genes
involved, leading him to hypothesize activation of a cryptic transporter
gene.
The genome regions to which Hall was able to narrow down the locations
of the changes do not correspond to the known location of the citT gene identified 16 years later, nor did the physiological characteristics in transport assays of Hall's Cit+ mutants match those to be expected for aerobic expression of the CitT transporter.
Cit+ evolves in the LTEE
In 2008, Lenski's team, led by Zachary D. Blount,
reported that the ability to grow aerobically on citrate had evolved in
one population. Around generation 33,127, a dramatic increase in
turbidity was observed in the population designated Ara-3. They found
that the population contained clones that were able to grow aerobically
on citrate (Cit+). This metabolic capacity permitted the
population to grow several-fold larger than it had previously, due to
the large amount of citrate present in the medium. Examination of frozen
fossil samples of the populations showed that Cit+ clones could be isolated as early as 31,500 generations. The Cit+
variants in the population were found to possess a number of genetic
markers unique to the Ara-3 population; this observation excluded the
possibility that the clones were contaminants, rather than spontaneous
mutants. In a series of experiments that "replayed" the tape of Ara-3
evolution from Cit− clones isolated from samples frozen at
various time points in the population's history, they demonstrated that
the ability to grow aerobically on citrate was more likely to re-evolve
in a subset of genetically pure, evolved clones. In these experiments,
they observed 19 new, independent instances of Cit+
re-evolution, but only when starting from clones isolated from after
generation 20,000. Fluctuation tests showed that clones from this
generation and later displayed a rate of mutation to the Cit+ trait which was significantly higher than the ancestral rate. Even in these later clones, the rate of mutation to Cit+ was on the order of one occurrence per trillion cell divisions.
Lenski and his colleagues concluded that the evolution of the Cit+
function in this one population arose due to one or more earlier,
possibly nonadaptive, "potentiating" mutations that increased the rate
of mutation to an accessible level. The data suggested that citrate
usage involved at least two mutations subsequent to these "potentiating"
mutations. More generally, the authors suggest these results indicate,
following the argument of Stephen Jay Gould, "that historical contingency can have a profound and lasting impact" on the course of evolution. These findings have come to be considered a significant instance of the impact of historical contingency on evolution.
Genomic analysis of the Cit+ trait and implications for evolutionary innovation
The Cit+ trait was actualized by a duplication mutation that created a new regulatory module by placing a copy of the citT
gene that encodes a citrate-succinate antiporter under the control of a
promoter that supports expression under aerobic conditions. This
mutation results in the CitT transporter being expressed when oxygen is
present, permitting growth on citrate.
In 2012, Lenski and his team reported the results of a genomic analysis of the Cit+
trait that shed light on the genetic basis and evolutionary history of
the trait. The researchers had sequenced the entire genomes of
twenty-nine clones isolated from various time points in the Ara-3
population's history. They used these sequences to reconstruct the
phylogenetic history of the population; this reconstruction showed that
the population had diversified into three clades by 20,000 generations. The Cit+
variants had evolved in one of these, which they called Clade 3. Clones
that had been found to be potentiated in earlier research were
distributed among all three clades, but were over-represented in Clade
3. This led the researchers to conclude that there had been at least two
potentiating mutations involved in Cit+ evolution.
The researchers also found that all Cit+ clones had
mutations in which a 2933-base-pair segment of DNA was duplicated or
amplified. The duplicated segment contained the gene citT for the
citrate transporter protein used in anaerobic growth on citrate. The
duplication is tandem, and resulted in copies that were head-to-tail
with respect to each other. This new configuration placed a copy of the
previously silent, unexpressed citT under the control of the adjacent rnk gene's promoter, which directs expression when oxygen is present. This new rnk-citT module produced a novel regulatory pattern for citT, activating expression of the citrate transporter when oxygen was present, and thereby enabled aerobic growth on citrate.
Movement of this rnk-citT module into the genome of a potentiated Cit− clone was shown to be sufficient to produce a Cit+ phenotype. However, the initial Cit+
phenotype conferred by the duplication was very weak, and only granted a
~1% fitness benefit. The researchers found that the number of copies of
the rnk-citT module had to be increased to strengthen the Cit+ trait sufficiently to permit the bacteria to grow well on the citrate. Further mutations after the Cit+ bacteria became dominant in the population continued to accumulate improved growth on citrate.
The researchers concluded that the evolution of the Cit+ trait occurred in three distinct phases: (1) mutations accumulated that increased the rate of mutation to Cit+,
(2) the trait itself appeared in a weak form, and (3) the trait was
improved by later mutations. Blount et al. suggested that this pattern
might be typical of how novel traits in general evolve, and proposed a
three-step model of evolutionary innovation:
Potentiation: a genetic background evolves in which a trait is mutationally accessible, making the trait's evolution possible.
Actualization: a mutation occurs that produces the trait, making it manifest, albeit likely in a weak form.
Refinement: Once the trait exists, if it provides selective
benefit, mutations will accumulate that improve the trait, making it
effective. This phase is open-ended, and will continue so long as
refining mutations arise and the trait remains beneficial.
This model has seen acceptance in evolutionary biology. In 2015 paleontologist Douglas Erwin
suggested a modification to a four-step model to better reflect a
possible distinction between evolutionary novelty and evolutionary
innovation, and to highlight the importance of environmental conditions:
potentiation, generation of novel phenotypes (actualization), adaptive
refinement, and exploitation (conversion of a novelty to an innovation
as it becomes important for the ecological establishment of possessing
organisms).
Investigation of potentiation
In 2014, a research team led by Eric Quandt in the lab of Jeffrey Barrick at the University of Texas at Austin
described the application of a new technique called Recursive
Genomewide Recombination and Sequencing (REGRES) to identify
potentiating mutations among the 70 present in the Ara-3 lineage that
evolved Cit+. This method used multiple rounds of a process in which F plasmid based conjugation between a 33,000 generation Cit+ clone, CZB154, and the Cit− founding clone of the LTEE to purge mutations not required for either manifestation of a weak or strong form of the Cit+ trait, which they refer to as Cit++. They found that the rnk-citT module responsible for the phenotypic switch to Cit+ was sufficient to produce a weak Cit+
phenotype in the ancestor. They also identified a mutation that had
occurred in the lineage leading to CZB154 after the initial evolution of
Cit+ that conferred a strong, Cit++ phenotype in the ancestor absent any mutation but the rnk-citT module. This mutation, found in the regulatory region of a gene called dctA, caused a massive increase in the expression of the DctA transporter, which functions to import C4-dicarboxylates into the cell. This increased DctA expression, they found, permitted Cit+ cells to re-uptake succinate, malate, and fumarate released into the medium by the CitT transporter during import of citrate. They identified a similar mutation in Cit++ clones in the Ara-3 population that increased DctA expression by restoring function to a gene that regulates it, dcuS, that had been deactivated in the ancestral clone. Quandt et al. concluded that the dctA mutation was not involved in potentiation, but refinement. This led them to suggest that evolution of Cit+
in the Ara-3 population might have been contingent upon a genetic
background and population-specific ecology that permitted the early,
weak Cit+ variants to persist in the population long enough
for refining mutations to arise and render growth on citrate strong
enough to provide a significant fitness benefit.
Quandt and colleagues later published findings definitively identifying a mutation that did potentiate Cit+ evolution. This mutation was in the gltA gene, which encodes citrate synthase, an enzyme involved in the flow of carbon into the citric acid cycle. It had the effect of increasing citrate synthase activity, and they showed that it permitted improved growth on acetate. Moreover, with the gltA mutation, the rnk-citT module that causes the Cit+ trait has a neutral-to-slightly beneficial fitness effect, while, without it, the module was strongly detrimental. The gltA mutation therefore seems to have permitted early, weak Cit+
variants to persist in the population until later refining mutations
could occur, consistent with their earlier conclusions. After a strong
Cit++ phenotype evolved, the increased citrate synthase activity became detrimental. The researchers found that later mutations in gltA
countered the first mutation, reducing citrate synthase activity, and
further improving growth on citrate. They concluded that the series of
mutation in gltA first potentiated, and then refined growth on citrate. They also suggested that the lineage in which Cit+
arose might have occupied a niche in Ara-3 based on growth on acetate,
and that the potentiating mutations that led to evolution of Cit+ in Ara-3 were originally adaptive for acetate use.
Investigation of post-Cit+ ecology and persistent diversity
A small subpopulation of Cit− cells unable to grow on citrate, and belonging to a separate clade persisted in the population after the Cit+ cells became dominant. Early findings showed that this diversity was partly due to the Cit− cells being better at growing on the glucose in the medium. Turner et al. later found that another factor behind the coexistence was that the Cit− cells evolved the ability to cross feed on the Cit+ majority. They showed that the Cit+ cells release succinate, malate, and fumarate
during growth on citrate, as the CitT transporter pumps these
substances out of the cell while pumping citrate into the cell. The Cit−
cells had rapidly evolved the ability to grow on these substances due
to a mutation that restored expression of an appropriate transporter
protein that was silent in the ancestor.
The Cit− subpopulation eventually went extinct in the population between 43,500 and 44,000 generations. This extinction was shown to not be due to the Cit+ majority evolving to be able to invade the niche occupied by the Cit− minority. Indeed, Cit− clones could invade Cit+
populations from after the extinction event. Moreover, in an experiment
in which they restarted twenty replicates of the Ara-3 population from
the sample frozen 500 generations before the extinction, Turner et al.
found that the Cit− subpopulation had not gone extinct in any
of the replicates after 500 generations of evolution. One of these
replicates was continued for 2,500 generations, over which Cit− continued to coexist. The researchers concluded that the extinction of Cit− had been due to some unknown "rare environmental perturbation", similar to that which can impact natural populations. The final replicate was integrated into the main LTEE experiment, becoming the thirteenth population, Ara-7.
Criticism of citrate-usage findings
Other researchers have experimented on evolving aerobic citrate-utilizing E. coli. Dustin Van Hofwegen et al., working in the lab of intelligent design proponent Scott Minnich, were able to isolate 46 independent citrate-utilizing mutants of E. coli
in just 12 to 100 generations using highly prolonged selection under
starvation, during which the bacteria would sample more mutations more
rapidly. In their research, the genomic DNA sequencing revealed an amplification of the citT and dctA
loci, and rearrangement of DNA were the same class of mutations
identified in the experiment by Richard Lenski and his team. They
concluded that the rarity of the citrate-utilizing mutant in Lenski's
research was likely a result of the selective experimental conditions
used by his team rather than being a unique evolutionary speciation
event.
John Roth and Sophie Maisnier-Patin reviewed the approaches in
both the Lenski team's delayed mutations and the Van Hofweges team's
rapid mutations on E. coli. They argue that both teams
experienced the same sequence of potentiation, actualization, and
refinement leading up to similar Cit+ variants.
According to them, the period of less than a day during which citrate
usage would be under selection, followed by 100-fold dilution, and a
period of growth on glucose that would not select for citrate use,
ultimately lowered the probability of E. coli being able to accumulate early adaptive mutations from one period of selection to the next.
On the other hand, Van Hofwegen's team allowed for a continuous
selection period of 7 days, which yielded a more rapid development of
citrate-using E. coli. Roth and Maisnier-Patin suggest that the serial dilution of E. coli and short period of selection for citrate-use under the conditions of the LTEE perpetually impeded each generation of E. coli from reaching the next stages of aerobic citrate utilization.
In response, Blount and Lenski acknowledge that the problem is
not with the experiments or the data, but with the interpretations made
by Van Hofwegen et al. and Maisnier-Patin and Roth. Lenski notes that the rapid evolution of Cit+ was not necessarily unexpected since his team was also able to produce multiple Cit+
mutants in a few weeks during the replay experiments they reported in
the 2008 paper in which his team first described the evolution of
aerobic citrate use in the LTEE. Furthermore, Lenski criticizes Van Hofwegen et al.'s description of the initial evolution of Cit+
as a "speciation event" by pointing out that the LTEE was not designed
to isolate citrate-using mutants or to deal with speciation since in
their 2008 paper they said "that becoming Cit+ was only a first step on the road to possible speciation", and thus did not propose that the Cit+ mutants were a different species, but that speciation might be an eventual consequence of the trait's evolution.
Lenski acknowledges that scientists, including him and his team, often
use short hand and jargon when discussing speciation, instead of writing
more carefully and precisely on the matter, and this can cause issues. However, he notes that speciation is generally considered by evolutionary biologists to be a process, and not an event.
He also criticizes Van Hofwegen et al. and Roth and Maisnier-Patin for
positing "false dichotomies" regarding the complex concept of historical
contingency. He argues that historical contingency means that history
matters, and that their 2008 paper presented data that showed that the
evolution of Cit+ in the LTEE was contingent upon mutations
that had accumulated earlier. He concludes that "...historical
contingency was invoked and demonstrated in a specific context, namely
that of the emergence of Cit+ in the LTEE—it does not mean that the emergence of Cit+
is historically contingent in other experimental contexts, nor for that
matter that other changes in the LTEE are historically contingent—in
fact, some other evolved changes in the LTEE have been highly
predictable and not (or at least not obviously) contingent on prior
mutations in the populations."
Hypoxia refers to low oxygen conditions. Normally, 20.9% of the gas in the atmosphere is oxygen. The partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere is 20.9% of the total barometric pressure.
In water, oxygen levels are much lower, approximately 1%, and fluctuate
locally depending on the presence of photosynthetic organisms and
relative distance to the surface (if there is more oxygen in the air, it
will diffuse across the partial pressure gradient).
Atmospheric hypoxia
Atmospheric hypoxia occurs naturally at high altitudes. Total atmospheric pressure decreases as altitude increases, causing a lower partial pressure of oxygen which is defined as hypobaric hypoxia. Oxygen remains at 20.9% of the total gas mixture, differing from hypoxic hypoxia,
where the percentage of oxygen in the air (or blood) is decreased. This
is common in the sealed burrows of some subterranean animals, such as blesmols. Atmospheric hypoxia is also the basis of altitude training which is a standard part of training for elite athletes. Several companies mimic hypoxia using normobaric artificial atmosphere.
Aquatic hypoxia
Oxygen depletion is a phenomenon that occurs in aquatic environments as dissolved oxygen (DO;
molecular oxygen dissolved in the water) becomes reduced in
concentration to a point where it becomes detrimental to aquatic
organisms living in the system. Dissolved oxygen is typically expressed
as a percentage of the oxygen that would dissolve in the water at the
prevailing temperature and salinity (both of which affect the solubility
of oxygen in water; see oxygen saturation and underwater). An aquatic system lacking dissolved oxygen (0% saturation) is termed anaerobic, reducing, or anoxic; a system with low concentration—in the range between 1 and 30% saturation—is called hypoxic or dysoxic. Most fish cannot live below 30% saturation. Hypoxia leads to impaired reproduction of remaining fish via endocrine disruption. A "healthy" aquatic environment should seldom experience less than 80%. The exaerobic zone is found at the boundary of anoxic and hypoxic zones.
Hypoxia can occur throughout the water column and also at high
altitudes as well as near sediments on the bottom. It usually extends
throughout 20-50% of the water column, but depending on the water depth
and location of pycnoclines (rapid changes in water density with depth).
It can occur in 10-80% of the water column. For example, in a 10-meter
water column, it can reach up to 2 meters below the surface. In a
20-meter water column, it can extend up to 8 meters below the surface.
Causes of hypoxia
Decline of oxygen saturation to anoxia, measured during the night in Kiel Fjord, Germany. Depth = 5 m
Oxygen depletion can result from a number of natural factors, but is most often a concern as a consequence of pollution and eutrophication in which plant nutrients enter a river, lake, or ocean, and phytoplankton blooms are encouraged. While phytoplankton, through photosynthesis, will raise DO saturation during daylight hours, the dense population of a bloom reduces DO saturation during the night by respiration. When phytoplankton cells die, they sink towards the bottom and are decomposed by bacteria, a process that further reduces DO in the water column. If oxygen depletion progresses to hypoxia, fish kills can occur and invertebrates like worms and clams on the bottom may be killed as well.
Still
frame from an underwater video of the sea floor. The floor is covered
with crabs, fish, and clams apparently dead or dying from oxygen
depletion.
Hypoxia may also occur in the absence of pollutants. In estuaries,
for example, because freshwater flowing from a river into the sea is
less dense than salt water, stratification in the water column can
result. Vertical mixing between the water bodies is therefore reduced,
restricting the supply of oxygen from the surface waters to the more
saline bottom waters. The oxygen concentration in the bottom layer may
then become low enough for hypoxia to occur. Areas particularly prone to
this include shallow waters of semi-enclosed water bodies such as the Waddenzee or the Gulf of Mexico, where land run-off is substantial. In these areas a so-called "dead zone" can be created. Low dissolved oxygen conditions are often seasonal, as is the case in Hood Canal and areas of Puget Sound, in Washington State. The World Resources Institute
has identified 375 hypoxic coastal zones around the world, concentrated
in coastal areas in Western Europe, the Eastern and Southern coasts of
the US, and East Asia, particularly in Japan.
Hypoxia may also be the explanation for periodic phenomena such as the Mobile Bay jubilee,
where aquatic life suddenly rushes to the shallows, perhaps trying to
escape oxygen-depleted water. Recent widespread shellfish kills near the
coasts of Oregon and Washington are also blamed on cyclic dead zone ecology.
Phytoplankton breakdown
Scientists
have determined that high concentrations of minerals dumped into bodies
of water causes significant growth of phytoplankton blooms. As these
blooms are broken down by bacteria, such as Phanerochaete chrysosprium, oxygen is depleted by the enzymes of these organisms.
Breakdown of lignin
Tetrapyrrol ring, the active site of Ligninperoxidase enzyme
Phytoplankton are mostly made up of lignin and cellulose, which are broken down by enzymes present in organisms such as P. chrysosprium, known as white-rot.
The breakdown of cellulose does not deplete oxygen concentration in
water, but the breakdown of lignin does. This breakdown of lignin
includes an oxidative mechanism, and requires the presence of dissolved
oxygen to take place by enzymes like ligninperoxidase. Other fungi such
as brown-rot, soft-rot, and blue stain fungi also are necessary in
lignin transformation. As this oxidation takes place, CO2 is formed in its place.
Active site of tetrapyrrol ring binding oxygen
Oxyferroheme is converted to Ferri-LiP with the addition of veratric alcohol, and gives off diatomic oxygen radical.
This is the breakdown of a confieryl alcohol by a hydrogen ion to make propanol and ortho-methoxyphenol.
Ligninperoxidase (LiP) serves as the most import enzyme because it is
best at breaking down lignin in these organisms. LiP disrupts C-C bonds
and C-O bonds within Lignin's three-dimensional structure, causing it
to break down. LiP consists of ten alpha helices, two Ca2+
structural ions, as well as a heme group called a tetrapyrrol ring.
Oxygen serves an important role in the catalytic cycle of LiP to form a
double bond on the Fe2+ ion in the tetrapyrrol ring. Without
the presence of diatomic oxygen in the water, this breakdown cannot take
place because Ferrin-LiP will not be reduced into Oxyferroheme. Oxygen
gas is used to reduce Ferrin-LiP into Oxyferroheme-LiP. Oxyferroheme and
veratric alcohol combine to create oxygen radical and Ferri-LiP, which
can now be used to degrade lignin. Oxygen radicals cannot be used in the environment, and are harmful in high presence in the environment.
Once Ferri-LiP is present in the ligninperoxidase, it can be used
to break down lignin molecules by removing one phenylpropane group at a
time through either the LRET mechanism or the mediator mechanism. The
LRET mechanism (long range electron transfer mechanism) transfers an
electron from the tetrapyrrol ring onto a molecule of phenylpropane in a
lignin. This electron moves onto a C-C or C-O bond to break one
phenylpropane molecule from the lignin, breaking it down by removing one
phenylpropane at a time.
In the mediator mechanism, LiP enzyme is activated by the
addition of hydrogen peroxide to make LiP radical, and a mediator such
as veratric alcohol is added and activated creating veratric alcohol
radical. Veratric alcohol radical transfers one electron to activate the
phenylpropane on lignin, and the electron dismantles a C-C or C-O bond
to release one phenylpropane from the lignin. As the size of a lignin
molecule increases, the more difficult it is to break these C-C or C-O
bonds. Three types of phenyl propane rings include coniferyl alcohol,
sinapyl alcohol, and-coumaryl alcohol.
LiP has a very low MolDock score, meaning there is little energy
required to form this enzyme and stabilize it to carry out reactions.
LiP has a MolDock score of -156.03 kcal/mol. This is energetically
favorable due to its negative free energy requirements, and therefore
this reaction catalyzed by LiP is likely to take place spontaneously. Breakdown of propanol and phenols occur naturally in the environment because they are both water-soluble.
Environmental factors
The
breakdown of phytoplankton in the environment depends on the presence
of oxygen, and once oxygen is no longer in the bodies of water,
ligninperoxidases cannot continue to break down the lignin. When oxygen
is not present in the water, the breakdown of phytoplankton changes from
10.7 days to a total of 160 days for this to take place.
The rate of phytoplankton breakdown can be represented using this equation:
In this equation, G(t) is the amount of particulate organic
carbon (POC) overall at a given time, t. G(0) is the concentration of
POC before breakdown takes place. k is a rate constant in year-1, and t
is time in years. For most POC of phytoplankton, the k is around 12.8
years-1, or about 28 days for nearly 96% of carbon to be broken down in
these systems. Whereas for anoxic systems, POC breakdown takes 125 days,
over four times longer.
It takes approximately 1 mg of Oxygen to break down 1 mg of POC in the
environment, and therefore, hypoxia takes place quickly as oxygen is
used up quickly to digest POC. About 9% of POC in phytoplankton can be
broken down in a single day at 18 °C, therefore it takes about eleven
days to completely break down a full phytoplankton.
After POC is broken down, this particulate matter can be turned
into other dissolved organic carbon, such as carbon dioxide, bicarbonate
ions, and carbonate. As much as 30% of phytoplankton can be broken down
into dissolved organic carbon. When this particulate organic carbon
interacts with 350 nm ultraviolet light, dissolved organic carbon is
formed, removing even more oxygen from the environment in the forms of
carbon dioxide, bicarbonate ions, and carbonate. Dissolved inorganic
carbon is made at a rate of 2.3-6.5 mg/(m^3)day.
As phytoplankton breakdown, free phosphorus and nitrogen become
available in the environment, which also fosters hypoxic conditions. As
the breakdown of these phytoplankton takes place, the more phosphorus
turns into phosphates, and nitrogens turn into nitrates. This depletes
the oxygen even more so in the environment, further creating hypoxic
zones in higher quantities. As more minerals such as phosphorus and
nitrogen are displaced into these aquatic systems, the growth of
phytoplankton greatly increases, and after their death, hypoxic zones
are formed.
Solutions
To
combat hypoxia, it is essential to reduce the amount of land-derived
nutrients reaching rivers in runoff. This can be done by improving
sewage treatment and by reducing the amount of fertilizers leaching into
the rivers. Alternately, this can be done by restoring natural
environments along a river; marshes are particularly effective in
reducing the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen (nutrients) in water.
Other natural habitat-based solutions include restoration of shellfish
populations, such as oysters. Oyster reefs remove nitrogen from the water column and filter out suspended solids, subsequently reducing the likelihood or extent of harmful algal blooms or anoxic conditions.
Foundational work toward the idea of improving marine water quality
through shellfish cultivation was conducted by Odd Lindahl et al., using
mussels in Sweden. More involved than single-species shellfish cultivation, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture mimics natural marine ecosystems, relying on polyculture to improve marine water quality.
Graphs of oxygen and salinity levels at Kiel Fjord in September 1998.
Technological solutions are also possible, such as that used in the redeveloped Salford Docks area of the Manchester Ship Canal
in England, where years of runoff from sewers and roads had accumulated
in the slow running waters. In 2001 a compressed air injection system
was introduced, which raised the oxygen levels in the water by up to
300%. The resulting improvement in water quality led to an increase in
the number of invertebrate species, such as freshwater shrimp, to more than 30. Spawning and growth rates of fish species such as roach and perch also increased to such an extent that they are now amongst the highest in England.
In a very short time the oxygen saturation
can drop to zero when offshore blowing winds drive surface water out
and anoxic depth water rises up. At the same time a decline in
temperature and a rise in salinity is observed (from the longterm
ecological observatory in the seas at Kiel Fjord, Germany). New approaches of long-term monitoring of oxygen regime in the ocean observe online the behavior of fish and zooplankton, which changes drastically under reduced oxygen saturations (ecoSCOPE) and already at very low levels of water pollution.
Exaptation and the related term co-option describe a shift in the function of a trait during evolution.
For example, a trait can evolve because it served one particular
function, but subsequently it may come to serve another. Exaptations are
common in both anatomy and behaviour. Bird feathers are a classic
example: initially they may have evolved for temperature regulation, but
later were adapted for flight. Interest in exaptation relates to both
the process and products of evolution: the process that creates complex traits and the products (functions, anatomical structures, biochemicals, etc.) that may be imperfectly developed. Exaptation was proposed by Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba as a replacement for what they considered to be a teleologically loaded term 'pre-adaptation'.
History and definitions
Charles Darwin
The idea that the function of a trait might shift during its evolutionary history originated with Charles Darwin (Darwin 1859). For many years the phenomenon was labeled "preadaptation", but since this term suggests teleology in biology, appearing to conflict with natural selection, it has been replaced by the term exaptation.
The idea had been explored by several scholars when in 1982 Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba
introduced the term "exaptation". However, this definition had two
categories with different implications for the role of adaptation.
(1) A character, previously shaped by natural selection for a
particular function (an adaptation), is coopted for a new
use—cooptation.
(2) A character whose origin cannot be ascribed to the direct action of
natural selection (a nonaptation), is coopted for a current
use—cooptation. (Gould and Vrba 1982, Table 1)
The definitions are silent as to whether exaptations had been shaped
by natural selection after cooption, although Gould and Vrba cite
examples (e.g., feathers) of traits shaped after cooption. Note that the
selection pressure upon a trait is likely to change if it is
(especially, primarily or solely) used for a new purpose, potentially
initiating a different evolutionary trajectory.
To avoid these ambiguities, Buss
et al. (1998) suggested the term "co-opted adaptation", which is
limited to traits that evolved after cooption. However, the commonly
used terms of "exaptation" and "cooption" are ambiguous in this regard.
Preadaptation
In
some circumstances, the "pre-" in preadaptation can be interpreted as
applying, for non-teleological reasons, prior to the adaptation itself,
creating a meaning for the term that is distinct from exaptation.
For example, future environments (say, hotter or drier ones), may
resemble those already encountered by a population at one of its current
spatial or temporal margins. This is not actual foresight, but rather the luck of having adapted to a climate which later becomes more prominent. Cryptic genetic variation may have the most strongly deleterious mutations purged from it, leaving an increased chance of useful adaptations, but this represents selection acting on current genomes with consequences for the future, rather than foresight.
Function may not always come before form: developed structures
could change or alter the primary functions they were intended for due to some structural or historical cause.
Examples
Bird feathers of various colors
Exaptations include the co-option of feathers,
which initially evolved for heat regulation, for display, and later for
use in bird flight. Another example is the lungs of many basal fish,
which evolved into the lungs of terrestrial vertebrates but also
underwent exaptation to become the gas bladder, a buoyancy control organ, in derived fish. A third is the repurposing of two of the three bones in the reptilian jaw to become the malleus and incus of the mammalian ear, leaving the mammalian jaw with just one hinge.
A behavioural example pertains to subdominant wolves
licking the mouths of lead wolves as a sign of submissiveness.
(Similarly, dogs, which are wolves who through a long process were
domesticated, lick the faces of their human owners.) This trait can be
explained as an exaptation of wolf pups licking the faces of adults to
encourage them to regurgitate food.
Arthropods provide the earliest identifiable fossils of land animals, from about 419 million years ago in the Late Silurian, and terrestrial tracks from about 450 million years ago appear to have been made by arthropods.
Arthropods were well pre-adapted to colonize land, because their
existing jointed exoskeletons provided support against gravity and
mechanical components that could interact to provide levers, columns and
other means of locomotion that did not depend on submergence in water.
Metabolism can be considered an important part of exaptation. As
one of the oldest biological systems and being central to life on the
Earth, studies have shown that metabolism may be able to use exaptation
in order to be fit, given some new set of conditions or environment.
Studies have shown that up to 44 carbon sources are viable for
metabolism to successfully take place and that any one adaptation in
these specific metabolic systems is due to multiple exaptations. Taking this perspective, exaptations are important in the origination of adaptations in general. A recent example comes from Richard Lenski's E. coli long-term evolution experiment, in which aerobic growth on citrate arose in one of twelve populations after 31,000 generations of evolution. Genomic analysis by Blount and colleagues showed that this novel trait was due to a gene duplication that caused oxic
expression of a citrate transporter gene that is normally only
expressed under anoxic conditions, thus exapting it for aerobic use. Metabolic systems have the potential to innovate without adaptive origins.
Gould and Brosius took the concept of exaptation to the genetic level. It is possible to look at a retroposon, originally thought to be simply junk DNA, and deduce that it may have gotten a new function to be termed as an exaptation.
Given an emergency situation in the past, a species may have used junk
DNA for a useful purpose in order to evolve and be able to survive. This
may have occurred with mammalian ancestors when confronted with a large
mass extinction about 250 million years ago and substantial increase in the level of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. More than 100 loci
have been found to be conserved only among mammalian genomes and are
thought to have essential roles in the generation of features such as
the placenta, diaphragm, mammary glands, neocortex, and auditory
ossicles. It is believed that as a result of exaptation, or making
previously "useless" DNA into DNA that could be used in order to
increase survival chance, mammals were able to generate new brain
structures as well as behavior to better survive the mass extinction and
adapt to new environments. Similarly, viruses and their components have
been repeatedly exapted for host functions. The functions of exapted
viruses typically involve either defense from other viruses or cellular
competitors or transfer of nucleic acids between cells, or storage
functions. Koonin
and Krupovic suggested that virus exaptation can reach different
depths, from recruitment of a fully functional virus to exploitation of
defective, partially degraded viruses, to utilization of individual
virus proteins.
Adaptation and exaptation cycle
It was speculated by Gould and Vrba
in one of the first papers written about exaptation, that when an
exaptation arises, it may not be perfectly suited for its new role and
may therefore develop new adaptations to promote its use in a better
manner. In other words, the beginning of developing a particular trait
starts out with a primary adaptation toward a fit or specific role,
followed by a primary exaptation (a new role is derived using the
existing feature but may not be perfect for it), which in turn leads to
the development of a secondary adaptation (the feature is improved by
natural selection for better performance), promoting further development
of an exaptation, and so forth.
Once again, feathers are an important example, in that they may
have first been adapted for thermoregulation and with time became useful
for catching insects, and therefore served as a new feature for another
benefit. For instance, large contour feathers with specific
arrangements arose as an adaptation for catching insects more
successfully, which eventually led to flight, since the larger feathers
served better for that purpose.
Implications
Evolution of complex traits
One of the challenges to Darwin's theory of evolution was explaining how complex structures could evolve gradually, given that their incipient forms may have been inadequate to serve any function. As George Jackson Mivart
(a critic of Darwin) pointed out, 5 percent of a bird wing would not be
functional. The incipient form of complex traits would not have
survived long enough to evolve to a useful form.
As Darwin elaborated in the last edition of The Origin of Species,
many complex traits evolved from earlier traits that had served
different functions. By trapping air, primitive wings would have enabled
birds to efficiently regulate their temperature, in part, by lifting up
their feathers when too warm. Individual animals with more of this
functionality would more successfully survive and reproduce, resulting
in the proliferation and intensification of the trait.
Eventually, feathers became sufficiently large to enable some
individuals to glide. These individuals would in turn more successfully
survive and reproduce, resulting in the spread of this trait because it
served a second and still more beneficial function: that of locomotion.
Hence, the evolution of bird wings can be explained by a shifting in
function from the regulation of temperature to flight.
Jury-rigged design
Darwin
explained how the traits of living organisms are well-designed for
their environment, but he also recognized that many traits are
imperfectly designed. They appear to have been made from available
material, that is, jury-rigged.
Understanding exaptations may suggest hypotheses regarding subtleties
in the adaptation. For instance, that feathers evolved initially for
thermal regulation may help to explain some of their features unrelated
to flight (Buss et al., 1998). However, this is readily explained by the
fact that they serve a dual purpose.
Some of the chemical pathways for physical pain and pain from social exclusion overlap.[26]
The physical pain system may have been co-opted to motivate social
animals to respond to threats to their inclusion in the group.
Evolution of technology
Exaptation
has received increasing attention in innovation and management studies
inspired by evolutionary dynamics, where it has been proposed as a
mechanism that drives the serendipitous expansion of technologies and
products in new domains.
