Data from: Rapid evolution of adaptive niche construction in experimental microbial populations

Many species engage in adaptive niche construction: modification of the
local environment that increases the modifying organism's competitive
fitness. Adaptive niche construction provides an alternative pathway to
higher fitness, shaping the environment rather than conforming to it. Yet,
experimental evidence for the evolutionary emergence of adaptive niche
construction is lacking, leaving its role in evolution uncertain. Here we
report a direct observation of the de novo evolution of adaptive niche
construction in populations of the bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens. In a
laboratory experiment, we allowed several bacterial populations to adapt
to a novel environment and assessed whether niche construction evolved
over time. We found that adaptive niche construction emerged rapidly,
within approximately 100 generations, and became ubiquitous after
approximately 400 generations. The large fitness effect of this niche
construction was dominated by the low fitness of evolved strains in the
ancestrally modified environment: evolved niche constructors were highly
dependent on their specific environmental modifications. Populations were
subjected to frequent resetting of environmental conditions and severe
reduction of spatial habitat structure, both of which are thought to make
adaptive niche construction difficult to evolve. Our finding that adaptive
niche construction nevertheless evolved repeatably suggests that it may
play a more important role in evolution than generally thought.