One to many and many to one: how phenotypic heterogeneity scaffolds communal carbon-harvesting by marine bacteria

Phenotypic heterogeneity shapes the behavior of clonal bacterial populations. The existence of heterogeneous sub-populations can increase the resilience of a clonal collective, allowing the collective to perform otherwise unattainable physiological functions. However, understanding the cellular mechanisms of how heterogeneity allows novel behaviors to emerge in clonal populations remains a challenge. In this talk, I'll present recent work on how phenotypic heterogeneity facilitates the collective growth and reproduction of a marine bacterium that eats polysaccharides from brown algae, allowing a division of labor. I'll demonstrate that this highly reproducible growth process emerges when cells require local density to access nutrients. I hope to convince you that the functional consequences of such phenotypic heterogeneity have likely been under-appreciated in the context of microbial ecology.