Presence of a loner strain maintains cooperation and diversity in well-mixed bacterial communities

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
R Fredrik InglisR Kümmerli

Abstract

Cooperation and diversity abound in nature despite cooperators risking exploitation from defectors and superior competitors displacing weaker ones. Understanding the persistence of cooperation and diversity is therefore a major problem for evolutionary ecology, especially in the context of well-mixed populations, where the potential for exploitation and displacement is greatest. Here, we demonstrate that a 'loner effect', described by economic game theorists, can maintain cooperation and diversity in real-world biological settings. We use mathematical models of public-good-producing bacteria to show that the presence of a loner strain, which produces an independent but relatively inefficient good, can lead to rock-paper-scissor dynamics, whereby cooperators outcompete loners, defectors outcompete cooperators and loners outcompete defectors. These model predictions are supported by our observations of evolutionary dynamics in well-mixed experimental communities of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We find that the coexistence of cooperators and defectors that produce and exploit, respectively, the iron-scavenging siderophore pyoverdine, is stabilized by the presence of loners with an independent iron-uptake mechanism. Our re...Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 8, 2017·FEMS Microbiology Ecology·Susanne A KraemerRees Kassen
Jan 7, 2017·The ISME Journal·Anne LeinweberRolf Kümmerli
Jun 16, 2018·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·Peter StilwellAngus Buckling
Jan 7, 2017·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Corina E Tarnita
Aug 30, 2017·Journal of Bacteriology·Özhan ÖzkayaRoberto Balbontín
Feb 23, 2019·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Konstanze T SchiesslRolf Kümmerli
Jun 22, 2018·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Shota Shibasaki, Masakazu Shimada
Nov 22, 2019·Nature Reviews. Microbiology·Jos KramerRolf Kümmerli
Jul 25, 2019·Nature Ecology & Evolution·Richard J LindsayIvana Gudelj
Aug 24, 2017·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·John B BruceAshleigh S Griffin
Feb 7, 2019·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·Tobias WechslerAkos Dobay
May 10, 2018·Frontiers in Microbiology·R Fredrik InglisJoan E Strassmann
Jul 14, 2017·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Michael Weigert, Rolf Kümmerli
Sep 13, 2017·BMC Evolutionary Biology·Elisa T Granato, Rolf Kümmerli
Oct 22, 2019·Journal of Molecular Biology·J CremerE Frey
Aug 15, 2021·Molecular Ecology·Alexandre R T FigueiredoRolf Kümmerli

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