Colonies of bacteria balance growth against risk,
just like financial investors, ecologists have found.
Using lab-based synthetic biology, experiments in
bacterial evolution, and mathematical modeling the study finds links between
organisms and markets.
Bacterial investment crashes and boom-bust cycles
are described in a paper in the journal Ecology Letters.
The study is the clearest experimental test of a
50-year-old theory relating trade-offs to competitive success. Continue
reading the main story
"The study is a classic demonstration of Darwinian
economics and survival of the fittest.” Dr
Ivana Gudelj (left) University of Exeter
The evolutionary successes of bacteria are plain to
see as they are found across the globe, but bacteria may also have something to
say about investment success more generally.
A research group from the UK and Australia used
strains of the bacteriumE. coli that were constrained in the amount of
resource that they had for growth, but that were also subjected to varying
degrees of biological stress.
Different strains of E. coli developed
covering a range of ability to cope with stress and invest in growth.
Externally imposed "market conditions",
represented by changing salt and acid contents of their environment, influenced
the outcome of the "investment decisions" made by each bacterium,
with success rewarded by survival, and failure leading to extinction.
The consequences of the trade-offs between
development of stress-resistance, which involves the acquisition of costly
proteins, or increasing consumption to grow were recorded in the evolution of
the genetic codes of the successful bacterial strains.
The observations were used to test and validate
mathematical models of bacterial investment booms and crashes.
Dr Ivana Gudelj from the University of Exeter was
one of the authors of the study, and said:
"We have shown that very
different investment opportunities can require different investment strategies. These
strategies are constrained by the subtleties in trade-offs that are usually
invisible or ignored in real markets. The study is a classic demonstration of
Darwinian economics and survival of the fittest." Read more:
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