Phenotypic plasticity segregates antagonistic species but undermines their coexistence

High salinity in co-cultures of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa yields >10-fold higher coexistence via clustering, but abolishing segregation boosts coexistence by >100-fold.

• Why it matters: Environmental change can trigger shared plastic responses in interacting species, yet it is unclear whether inducing environments help coexistence or whether induced phenotypes can undermine it.
• What they did: The authors compared habitual versus high salinity, tracking how salinity-driven clustering altered spatial segregation and coexistence, then physically inhibited clustering and used community-wide genomics to assess coculture-specific evolution.
• The result: Clustering was adaptive for Pa but not Sa, enabling Pa to monopolize oxygen and diminish Sa in a diffusion-based killing mechanism; removing segregation in high salinity enabled rapid coculture-specific evolution.

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