A Comparison of Methods to Measure Fitness in Escherichia coli
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Abstract
In order to characterize the dynamics of adaptation, it is important to be able to quantify how a population's mean fitness changes over time. Such measurements are especially important in experimental studies of evolution using microbes. The Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE) with Escherichia coli provides one such system in which mean fitness has been measured by competing derived and ancestral populations. The traditional method used to measure fitness in the LTEE and many similar experiments, though, is subject to a potential limitation. As the relative fitness of the two competitors diverges, the measurement error increases because the less-fit population becomes increasingly small and cannot be enumerated as precisely. Here, we present and employ two alternatives to the traditional method. One is based on reducing the fitness differential between the competitors by using a common reference competitor from an intermediate generation that has intermediate fitness; the other alternative increases the initial population size of the less-fit, ancestral competitor. We performed a total of 480 competitions to compare the statistical properties of estimates obtained using these alternative methods with those obtained using the traditional method for samples taken over 50,000 generations from one of the LTEE populations. On balance, neither alternative method yielded measurements that were more precise than the traditional method.
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In one E. coli study with 8 different rpoB mutations, the relative fitness ranged between 0.7 and 1.0.
“In one E. coli study with 8 different rpoB mutations it has been shown that the relative fitness can lay anywhere between 0.7 and 1.0 [54].”
From Efficient, robust, and versatile fluctuation data analysis using MLE MUtation Rate calculator (mlemur) (2023) · cites this paper as [54]
The Materials and Methods section describes fitness measurements for evolved E. coli populations, and Table 3 in Results and Discussion reports fitness values from evolution experiments. Neither addresses eight rpoB mutations or a relative-fitness range of 0.7–1.0; searches for those terms and rifampicin resistance found no matching passage in our copy. Page numbers were not provided. (LLM, conf=0.75)
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- Authors
- Wiser, M. J., & Lenski, R. E.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wiser, Michael J.
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2015-05-11
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- e0126210
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4427439
- OpenAlex
- W2223866672
- Cited by
- 162
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 6.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0939454, 1019989)
- Michigan State University
- College of Engineering, Michigan State University
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy and History of Science
- Keywords
- Escherichia coli, long-term evolution experiment, experimental evolution, population competition, measurement error, population size
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Physiological, Arabinose, Biological Assay, Culture Media, Escherichia coli, Biological Evolution, Glucose, Stress, Physiological, Genetic Fitness, Bacterial Load
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