%0 Generic %A Marttinen, Pekka %A P. Hanage, William %D 2017 %T Speciation trajectories in recombining bacterial species %U https://plos.figshare.com/articles/dataset/Speciation_trajectories_in_recombining_bacterial_species/5167876 %R 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005640 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806279 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806285 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806291 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806297 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806312 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806318 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806324 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806330 %2 https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/8806336 %K Streptococcus pneumoniae %K Campylobacter jejuni %K cluster %K data sets %K minority population %K recombining bacteria %K Speciation trajectories %K population structure %K equilibrium distance %K habitat overlap %K recombining species %K clonal divergence %K habitat structure %K speciation trajectories %K model %K habitat space %X

It is generally agreed that bacterial diversity can be classified into genetically and ecologically cohesive units, but what produces such variation is a topic of intensive research. Recombination may maintain coherent species of frequently recombining bacteria, but the emergence of distinct clusters within a recombining species, and the impact of habitat structure in this process are not well described, limiting our understanding of how new species are created. Here we present a model of bacterial evolution in overlapping habitat space. We show that the amount of habitat overlap determines the outcome for a pair of clusters, which may range from fast clonal divergence with little interaction between the clusters to a stationary population structure, where different clusters maintain an equilibrium distance between each other for an indefinite time. We fit our model to two data sets. In Streptococcus pneumoniae, we find a genomically and ecologically distinct subset, held at a relatively constant genetic distance from the majority of the population through frequent recombination with it, while in Campylobacter jejuni, we find a minority population we predict will continue to diverge at a higher rate. This approach may predict and define speciation trajectories in multiple bacterial species.

%I PLOS Computational Biology