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Phenotypic Diversity, Population Growth, and Information in Fluctuating Environments
Edo Kussell* and
Stanislas Leibler
Organisms in fluctuating environments must constantly adapttheir behavior to survive. In clonal populations, this may beachieved through sensing followed by response or through thegeneration of diversity by stochastic phenotype switching. Herewe show that stochastic switching can be favored over sensingwhen the environment changes infrequently. The optimal switchingrates then mimic the statistics of environmental changes. Wederive a relation between the long-term growth rate of the organismand the information available about its fluctuating environment.
Laboratory of Living Matter and Center for Studies in Physics and Biology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, Box 34, New York, NY 10021–6399, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kussele{at}rockefeller.edu
