Microbial population dynamics and evolutionary outcomes under extreme energy-limitation

As the most abundant and diverse form of life on Earth, microorganisms commonly inhabit energy-limited environments where cellular maintenance and growth is highly constrained. To gain insight into how microorganisms persist under such conditions, we derived demographic parameters from a diverse collection of bacteria by censusing 100 populations in a closed system for 1,000 days.

All but one taxon survived prolonged resource scarcity, yielding estimated times-to-extinction ranging over four orders of magnitude from 10⁰ – 10⁵ years. These findings corroborate reports of long-lived bacteria that have been recovered from ancient environmental samples, while providing insight into mechanisms of persistence. Critically, we found that as death rates declined over time, lifespan was extended through the scavenging of dead cells.

Although growth and reproduction were dramatically suppressed in the absence of an exogenous resource supply, bacterial populations continued to evolve. Hundreds of mutations were acquired, contributing to genome-wide signatures of negative selection as well as molecular signals of adaptation. Remarkable consistency in the ecological and evolutionary dynamics indicate that distantly related bacteria respond to energy-limitation in a similar and predictable manner, which likely contributes to the stability and robustness of microbial life.