Evolthon: A community endeavor to evolve lab evolution
Creators: name: Strauss, Sivan Kaminski
name: Schirman, Dvir
name: Ghil Jona
name: Brooks, Aaron N
name: Kunjapur, Aditya M
name: Ba, Alex N Nguyen
name: Flint, Alice
name: Andras Solt
name: Mershin, Andreas
name: Atray Dixit
name: Avihu H Yona
name: Csörgő, Bálint
name: Bede Phillip Busby
name: Hennig, Bianca P
name: Pál, Csaba
name: Schraivogel, Daniel
name: Schultz, Daniel
name: Wernick, David G
name: Agashe, Deepa
name: Levi, Dikla
name: Zabezhinsky, Dmitry
name: Russ, Dor
name: Sass, Ehud
name: Tamar, Einat
name: Herz, Elad
name: Levy, Emmanuel D
name: Church, George M
name: Yelin, Idan
name: Nachman, Iftach
name: Gerst, Jeffrey E
name: Georgeson, Joseph M
name: Adamala, Katarzyna P
name: Steinmetz, Lars M
name: Rübsam, Marc
name: Ralser, Markus
name: Klutstein, Michael
name: Desai, Michael M
name: Nilima Walunjkar
name: Yin, Ning
name: Hefetz, Noa Aharon
name: Jakimo, Noah
name: Snitser, Olga
name: Adini, Omri
name: Kumar, Prashant
name: Smith, Rachel Soo Hoo
name: Zeidan, Razi
name: Hazan, Ronen
name: Rak, Roni
name: Kishony, Roy
name: Johnson, Shannon
name: Nouriel, Shira
name: Vonesch, Sibylle C
name: Simmie Foster
name: Dagan, Tal
name: Tanita Wein
name: Thrasyvoulos Karydis
name: Wannier, Timothy M
name: Stiles, Timothy
name: Olin-Sandoval, Viridiana
name: Mueller, William F
name: Bar-On, Yinon M
name: Dahan, Orna
name: Pilpel, Yitzhak
Publisher: name: The Francis Crick Institute
Year: 2019
Subjects: Chemical Biology &amp; High Throughput
Synthetic Biology
Ecology,Evolution &amp; Ethology
Metabolism
Computational &amp; Systems Biology

description: In experimental evolution, scientists evolve organisms in the lab, typically by challenging them to new environmental conditions. How best to evolve a desired trait? Should the challenge be applied abruptly, gradually, periodically, sporadically? Should one apply chemical mutagenesis, and do strains with high innate mutation rate evolve faster? What are ideal population sizes of evolving populations? There are endless strategies, beyond those that can be exposed by individual labs. We therefore arranged a community challenge, Evolthon, in which students and scientists from different labs were asked to evolve Escherichia coli or Saccharomyces cerevisiae for an abiotic stress-low temperature. About 30 participants from around the world explored diverse environmental and genetic regimes of evolution. After a period of evolution in each lab, all strains of each species were competed with one another. In yeast, the most successful strategies were those that used mating, underscoring the importance of sex in evolution. In bacteria, the fittest strain used a strategy based on exploration of different mutation rates. Different strategies displayed variable levels of performance and stability across additional challenges and conditions. This study therefore uncovers principles of effective experimental evolutionary regimens and might prove useful also for biotechnological developments of new strains and for understanding natural strategies in evolutionary arms races between species. Evolthon constitutes a model for community-based scientific exploration that encourages creativity and cooperation.