Recombination and the nature of bacterial speciation

By Christophe Fraser, W. Hanage, B. Spratt. Science, 2007

548 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Genetic surveys reveal the diversity of bacteria and lead to the questioning of species concepts used to categorize bacteria. One difficulty in defining bacterial species arises from the high rates of recombination that results in the transfer of DNA between relatively distantly related bacteria. Barriers to this process, which could be used to define species naturally, are not apparent. Here, we review conceptual models of bacterial speciation and describe our computer simulations of speciation. Our findings suggest that the rate of recombination and its relation to genetic divergence have a strong influence on outcomes. We propose that a distinction be made between clonal divergence and sexual speciation. Hence, to make sense of bacterial diversity, we need data not only from genetic surveys but also from experimental determination of selection pressures and recombination rates and from theoretical models.

Subfields: Endocrinology, Genetics, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/54d1d592a6f670f0239d254284d997e90efbd2e8

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In Endocrinology

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Citations in the corpus

Microbiology and the species problem (2010, background): “Some have argued that this assumption is mistaken ( Fraser et al. 2007: 480).”
Explaining microbial population genomics through phage predation (2009, background): “In this sense, phage infection may provide a link between the evolutionary process of generating diversity and the mechanistic explanation for it, which indicates that lack of recombination is responsible for population genetic divergenc”
Species concepts and speciation factors in cyanobacteria, with connection to the problems of diversity and classification (2015, background): “Fraser et al. (2007) modeled HR within bacteria, showing that if HR exceeds mutation rate, a species evolves in a similar manner as sexually reproducing eukaryotes, and with low HR the populations are clonal.”
ClonalFrameML: Efficient Inference of Recombination in Whole Bacterial Genomes (2015, background): “Although there is limited signal of recombination within closely related lineages [15,70 – 74], analysis of species-wide diversity reveals evidence of widespread homoplasy in the genome [26].”
Pseudomonas aeruginosa population structure revisited under environmental focus (2010, background): “Moreover, it was shown that the rate of the recombination has the strongest influence on the genetic discrepancy, and, thus, distinction should be made between clonal divergence and sexual speciation (Fraser et al., 2007).”
Vibrio Related Diseases in Aquaculture and Development of Rapid and Accurate Identification Methods (2012, background): “Due to the plasticity of Vibrio genomes, with frequent horizontal gene transfer events, species boundaries are very narrow in the marine environment [14].”
Inordinate Fondness Multiplied and Redistributed: the Number of Species on Earth and the New Pie of Life (2017, background): “Therefore, recombination may act as a cohesive force among conspecific bacterial individuals, just as in sexual species (e.g., Fraser et al. 2007; Shapiro et al. 2012).”