IRES communities are characterized by continuously changing niche- and neutral-related factors, and the potential for allopatric diversification is high for species resistant to drying with low-dispersal ability.
It has been previously noted that rodent V1R homologs exhibit unusually low dS/dN ratios as compared to typical gene pairs in these species [ 27], suggestive of a tendency for adaptive selection, presumably to meet changing niche- and species-specific requirements.
The successional dynamics of the three phenotypes are thus likely driven by adaptations to a changing metabolic niche space, defined by fluctuating glucose, acetate and, potentially, oxygen availabilities (Le Gac et al., 2008; Tyerman et al., 2008; Herron and Doebeli, 2013).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.08208.009 Time series of acetate concentrations link the observed successional dynamics of the three types to a gradually changing metabolic niche space: The replacement of type A by the more efficient glucose specialist SS leads to an accumulation of acetate and facilitates the invasion of the FS type.
I wish to thank the organizers and participants of the recent Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences, Biogeography, Changing Climates, and Niche Evolution, for stimulating discussions that helped formulate the present study.
The niche reflects changing medical economics: hospitals provide increasingly expensive medical care while curtailing length of stay, while community hospitals, which once provided lower levels of care for longer time periods, now focus on more lucrative specialties.
Reprogramming might be achieved by changing the cellular microenvironment (niche), in which the cells grow, to provide signals that might activate appropriate metabolic pathways.
In the case of A. svalbardicum, knowledge of the environmental factors controlling its biology and distribution is key to better understand the abilities of the species to track its ecological niche in changing times [ 12].
In this way we are focusing on functions where the prokaryote may have had a recent need to increase the gene dosage, e.g. to adapt to a changing environment or new niche in which it probably is living right now.
We suggest that in this particular case, the species nonmonophyly observed is due to recent, rapid diversification in a dramatically changing landscape in which niche-building opportunities were manifold and time for lineage sorting has not yet been sufficient.
