Higher levels of antibiotic resistance are less competitive: the hidden ecological cost of no-metabolic cost resistance

Abstract excerpt

Antibiotic resistance is often assumed to be constrained by fitness costs that limit the spread of highly resistant strains. Yet, many resistance mechanisms – including enzymatic antibiotic degradation – can arise with little or no metabolic cost, raising an important question: why is extreme resistance not more widespread? Here, we show that community-level interactions impose a hidden ecological cost on high res...

Topics

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• Ampicillin
• Anti-Bacterial Agents
• Bacteria
• Drug Resistance, Bacterial
• Microbial Sensitivity Tests
• Models, Biological
• Mutation
• Stochastic Processes

Identifiers and source

Literature Corpus work

a3be1c53-eb7e-5e88-81af-07f83890a226

DOI

10.64898/2025.12.15.694367