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Evolutionary limits to cooperation in microbial communities.

Nuno M Oliveira1, Rene Niehus1, Kevin R Foster2

  • 1Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, United Kingdom; and Oxford Centre for Integrative Systems Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QU, United Kingdom.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|December 3, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Microbial cooperation via compound exchange is limited, evolving only with intermediate genetic mixing. This can lead to reduced community productivity and reliance on other genotypes.

Keywords:
Black Queen evolutioncooperation/exploitationecoevolutionary modelgenetic mixingmicrobial communities

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Area of Science:

  • Microbial Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Systems Biology

Background:

  • Microbes produce costly compounds that benefit neighbors, suggesting cooperation.
  • Compound exchange between microbial genotypes is hypothesized to be common.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the ecoevolutionary conditions favoring cooperation via compound exchange in microbes.
  • To understand the constraints and consequences of cooperative exchanges in microbial communities.

Main Methods:

  • Developed an ecoevolutionary model simulating microbes with multiple secretions.
  • Analyzed cooperation dynamics under varying demographic regimes and genetic mixing.

Main Results:

  • Cooperation evolves only under specific demographic conditions with intermediate genetic mixing.
  • Cooperative exchanges lead to a loss of strain autonomy and reliance on complementary genotypes.
  • Cooperation arises from mutual exploitation, akin to cheating and Black Queen dynamics.
  • Cooperative exchanges reduce overall community productivity compared to autonomous strains.

Conclusions:

  • Natural selection often limits cooperative exchanges in microbial communities.
  • Cooperative exchanges can be an inefficient strategy for group living in microbes.
  • Findings are supported by recent synthetic community studies.