Ecological drivers of division of labour in Streptomyces

Division of labour occurs when different individuals, cells or tissues become specialised to perform complementary tasks that benefit the whole organism or social group. Although long studied in multicellular organisms and colonies of social insects, several recent studies have established that division of labour is common in microorganisms. We review recent work on the division of labour in unicellular and multicellular bacteria, with a particular focus on reproductive and metabolic divisions of labour in actinomycetes. Actinomycetes show enormous variation in sporophore morphology and spore production patterns that likely affect the potential for cooperative interactions within colonies. They also display both irreversible genetic and spatiotemporally regulated phenotypic divisions of labour that structure antibiotic production. We highlight outstanding questions in this group of multicellular bacteria and outline factors that can modify the expression of division of labour across microbes.