Cheating on cheaters dramatically affects social interactions in<i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>

Özkaya, Özhan; Balbontín, Roberto; Gordo, Isabel; Xavier, Karina B.

doi:10.1101/118240

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…If this cost of not performing the pleiotropically linked private goods was high enough, this could stabilise cooperation, when it would otherwise be outcompeted by cheats. In different papers, this linkage is referred to as pleiotropy, coregulation, or metabolic constraint, and it has been suggested as a key mechanism for stabilising cooperation, alongside factors such as kin selection and policing [ 1 – 9 , 23 , 24 ] ( S1 Table ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pleiotropy, cooperation, and the social evolution of genetic architecture

2018

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Pleiotropy has been suggested as a novel mechanism for stabilising cooperation in bacteria and other microbes. The hypothesis is that linking cooperation with a trait that provides a personal (private) benefit can outweigh the cost of cooperation in situations when cooperation would not be favoured by mechanisms such as kin selection. We analysed the theoretical plausibility of this hypothesis, with analytical models and individual-based simulations. We found that (1) pleiotropy does not stabilise cooperation, unless the cooperative and private traits are linked via a genetic architecture that cannot evolve (mutational constraint); (2) if the genetic architecture is constrained in this way, then pleiotropy favours any type of trait and not especially cooperation; (3) if the genetic architecture can evolve, then pleiotropy does not favour cooperation; and (4) there are several alternative explanations for why traits may be linked, and causality can even be predicted in the opposite direction, with cooperation favouring pleiotropy. Our results suggest that pleiotropy could only explain cooperation under restrictive conditions and instead show how social evolution can shape the genetic architecture.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pleiotropy, cooperation, and the social evolution of genetic architecture

2018

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Maintenance of Microbial Cooperation Mediated by Public Goods in Single- and Multiple-Trait Scenarios

et al. 2017

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Microbes often form densely populated communities, which favor competitive and cooperative interactions. Cooperation among bacteria often occurs through the production of metabolically costly molecules produced by certain individuals that become available to other neighboring individuals, called public goods. This type of cooperation is susceptible to exploitation, since non-producers of a public good can benefit from it while saving the cost of its production (cheating), gaining a fitness advantage over producers (cooperators). Thus, in mixed cultures, cheaters can increase in frequency in the population, relative to cooperators. Sometimes, and as predicted by simple game-theoretic arguments, such increase in the frequency of cheaters causes loss of the cooperative traits by exhaustion of the public goods, eventually leading to a collapse of the entire population. In other cases, however, both cooperators and cheaters remain in coexistence. This raises the question of how cooperation is maintained in microbial populations. Several strategies to prevent cheating have been described involving a single trait and a unique environmental constraint. In this review, we describe current knowledge on the evolutionary stability of microbial cooperation, discussing recent discoveries describing the mechanisms operating in multiple traits and multiple constraints settings. We conclude with a consideration of the consequences of these complex interactions, and we briefly discuss the potential role of social interactions involving multiple traits and multiple environmental constraints in the evolution of specialization and division of labor in microbes.

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Cheating on cheaters dramatically affects social interactions inPseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract: 13Bacterial cooperation can be disrupted by non-producers, which can profit from 14 public goods without paying their production cost. A cheater can increase in

Cited by 2 publications

References 85 publications

Pleiotropy, cooperation, and the social evolution of genetic architecture

Pleiotropy, cooperation, and the social evolution of genetic architecture

Maintenance of Microbial Cooperation Mediated by Public Goods in Single- and Multiple-Trait Scenarios

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