Laboratory biases hinder Eco-Evo-Devo integration: hints from the microworld

TL;DR

This paper highlights how laboratory biases, such as using strains and conditions that don't reflect natural environments, hinder the integration of ecological, evolutionary, and developmental insights, using microbial models as a case study.

Contribution

It demonstrates how contrasting developmental phenotypes in microbes depend on environmental factors, emphasizing the need to incorporate ecological realism in experiments.

Findings

Developmental phenotypes vary with temperature and substrate stiffness.

Laboratory strains and conditions can bias developmental observations.

Microbial models reveal environmental influences on development.

Abstract

How specific environmental contexts contribute to the robustness and variation of developmental trajectories and evolutionary transitions is a central point in Eco-Evo-Devo. However, the articulation of ecological, evolutionary and developmental processes into integrative frameworks has been elusive, partly because standard experimental designs neglect or oversimplify ecologically meaningful contexts. Microbial models are useful to expose and discuss two possible sources of bias associated with gene-centered experimental designs: the use of laboratory strains and laboratory environmental conditions. We illustrate our point by showing how contrasting developmental phenotypes in Myxococcus xanthus depend on the joint variation of temperature and substrate stiffness. Microorganismal development can provide key information for better understanding the role of environmental conditions in the evolution of developmental variation, and to overcome some of the limitations associated with current experimental approaches.