![]() ![]() Perhaps best known for its formation of fruiting bodies in response to starvation, M. In addition to using diffusible killing agents, the generalist bacterial predator Myxococcus xanthus employs highly effective predatory weapons that depend on contact with prey cells. Other bacteria kill prey without attachment using diffusible secretions. In a virus-like life cycle, cells of the specialist bacterial predator Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus physically attach to a prey cell before invading it and reproducing inside. Many eukaryotic predators of bacteria such as nematodes and many protists ingest whole prey cells, while predatory bacteria are too small to do so. Behavioral modes of microbial predation vary greatly. Predation pervades the microbial world as well as animal communities, impacting microbial community composition and network structure and thereby influencing nutrient-cycling dynamics and important features of macroorganism biology. Investigating how predator–prey interactions change as a function of ecological context, whether contemporaneous or historical, is necessary for understanding how those interactions evolve in spatially and temporally heterogeneous habitats. For example, maternal exposure to predation risk at one time can influence the degree of antipredator behavior displayed by offspring at a later time. Įcological effects on predator–prey interactions can also be delayed. ![]() However, at least 1 study has found that abiotic ecology can even reverse the predominant direction of mutual predation specifically, the majority direction of predation events between 2 amphipod species has been shown to reverse as a function of salinity. Most such examples illustrate how ecological context modulates the effectiveness of predation in a unidirectional predator–prey relationship. For example, water temperature immediately influences the timing and duration of predator attacks in some fish, background versus prey coloration often determines prey detectability, and snow depth modulates the efficiency of wolf predation. Some ecological factors influence predator–prey interactions contemporaneously. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.Įcological context strongly shapes the intensity and character of many biotic interactions, including between predators and prey. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: The R script used to analyze this data and the datasets are available on Github at and Zenodo (10.5281/zenodo.10214013).įunding: This work was funded by Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) grant 310030B_182830 to GJV. Received: Accepted: NovemPublished: January 23, 2024Ĭopyright: © 2024 Vasse et al. PLoS Biol 22(1):Īcademic Editor: Lotte Søgaard-Andersen, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology: Max-Planck-Institut fur terrestrische Mikrobiologie, GERMANY They also suggest that a larger proportion of microbial warfare results in predation-the killing and consumption of organisms-than is generally recognized.Ĭitation: Vasse M, Fiegna F, Kriesel B, Velicer GJ (2024) Killer prey: Ecology reverses bacterial predation. Our results suggest that the sign of lethal microbial antagonisms may often change across abiotic gradients in natural microbial communities, with important ecological and evolutionary implications. fluorescens supernatant also killed 2 other phylogenetically distant species among several examined. xanthus to extinction and growing on its remains. fluorescens reared at 22☌ became the predator, slaughtering M. While Pseudomonas fluorescens reared at 32☌ was extensively killed by the generalist predator Myxococcus xanthus, P. We show that the temperature at which prey grow before interacting with a bacterial predator can determine the very direction of predation, reversing predator and prey identities. Ecological variation influences the character of many biotic interactions, but examples of predator–prey reversal mediated by abiotic context are few. ![]()
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