Complex interactions underpin social behaviour in Dictyostelium giganteum

Sathe, Santosh; Nanjundiah, Vidyanand

doi:10.1007/s00265-018-2572-9

Cited by 12 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…However, the existence and outcome of any trade-offs will likely depend strongly on details of the genetic architecture, and even strong correlations will not necessarily confer longterm constraints [109]. Thus, more empirical work is necessary to measure genetic correlations among traits, to determine how success in one realm of the life cycle impacts or trades off with success in other stages [105,110], and to assess the robustness of these constraints over longer timescales. Finally, even within a single life stage, such as during competitive spore production in chimeras, complex interactions among strains and environmental dependence of phenotypes can cause competitive outcomes to differ depending on the context -for example, depending on the frequency or number of social partners [110,111].…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enforcing Cooperation in the Social Amoebae

Ostrowski

2019

Current Biology

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Cooperation has been essential to the evolution of biological complexity, but many societies struggle to overcome internal conflicts and divisions. Dictyostelium discoideum, or the social amoeba, has been a useful model system for exploring these conflicts and how they can be resolved. When starved, these cells communicate, gather into groups, and build themselves into a multicellular fruiting body. Some cells altruistically die to form the rigid stalk, while the remainder sit atop the stalk, become spores, and disperse. Evolutionary theory predicts that conflict will arise over which cells die to form the stalk and which cells become spores and survive. The power of the social amoeba lies in the ability to explore how cooperation and conflict work across multiple levels, ranging from proximate mechanisms (how does it work?) to ultimate evolutionary answers (why does it work?). Recent studies point to solutions to the problem of ensuring fairness, such as the ability to suppress selfishness and to recognize and avoid unrelated individuals. This work confirms a central role for kin selection, but also suggests new explanations for how social amoebae might enforce cooperation. New approaches based on genomics are also enabling researchers to decipher for the first time the evolutionary history of cooperation and conflict and to determine its role in shaping the biology of multicellular organisms.

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Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enforcing Cooperation in the Social Amoebae

Ostrowski

2019

Current Biology

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“…The ecological context and trade‐offs can combine to ensure effective neutrality between different genotypes (Martínez‐García and Tarnita, ). The first three features have been observed in the CSM D. giganteum (Sathe & Nanjundiah, , and unpublished observations). Among D. giganteum wild‐types that co‐occur, some associate readily to form chimaeras whereas others do not, which indicates that subgroups of genotypes may have been selected for long‐term coexistence (Sathe, Khetan, & Nanjundiah, ).…”

Section: Stable Coexistence Is Possible When Multicellular Groups Arementioning

confidence: 68%

“…More to the point, they can form a common multicellular unit. However, when tested pair‐wise, they differ in several respects (Sathe and Nanjundiah () showed this for Dictyostelium giganteum , and it would be extremely surprising if D. discoideum were any different).…”

Section: The Different Extracellular Phosphodiesterase Profiles May Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

Many roads lead to Rome: Neutral phenotypes in microorganisms

Nanjundiah

2019

J Exp Zool Pt B

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John Bonner pointed out that microorganisms differ in several ways, some of which may reflect neutral phenotypic evolution. For making his case, Bonner referred to interspecies differences and morphological traits. Here we consider intraspecies differences and physiological traits. As a case‐study, we examine the production of an extracellular cyclic 3 falseprefix′,5 falseprefix′ monophosphate phosphodiesterase in the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum. Temporal profiles of phosphodiesterase activity differ significantly between wild‐type strains. From that we argue that the inference drawn initially from studies on a single wild‐type, namely that the profile displayed by it pointed to an adaptive role, was mistaken. We generalize the conclusion to suggest that physiological differences exhibited by microorganisms of the same species may, but need not, reflect adaptations to different environments. Rather, the differences could be related to the fact that microorganisms live in groups whose composition can vary between homogeneous (clonal) and heterogeneous (polyclonal). More than one physiological profile is consistent with the normal development of the group in a given environment; the alternatives are neutral. When studying microbial physiology and behavior, it is expected that the observations are made on a clonal population; genetic (and so phenotypic) heterogeneity is carefully guarded against. As the example from D. discoideum shows, an unintended consequence of overlooking phenotypic heterogeneity is that one can fall into the trap of accepting a seemingly plausible, but possibly erroneous, adaptive explanation for a “normal” wild‐type phenotype.

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“…Numerous studies indicate that frequency-dependent changes in spore bias is the rule rather than the exception in chimerae of both D. discoideum (Gilbert et al, 2007;Madgwick et al, 2018) and other dictyostelids (Sathe and Nanjundiah, 2018). Strains identified as cheaters by mixing equal amounts of cells of two genotypes thus have variable success against a cooperator counterpart when their relative proportions are changed.…”

Section: Cell-level Response To Social Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Conflicts in <em>Dictyostelium discoideum</em> : A Matter of Scales

Forget¹,

Adiba²,

Monte³

2021

Preprint

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The ’social amoeba’ Dictyostelium discoideum, where aggregation of genet- ically heterogeneous cells produces functional collective structures, epitomizes social conflicts associated with multicellular organization. ’Cheater’ populations that have a higher chance – quantified by a positive spore bias – of surviving to the next generation are selectively advantaged. Their spread is thus expected to undermine collective functions over evolutionary times. In this review, we discuss the two main approaches adopted to conceptualize social conflicts in Dictyostelium discoideum: describing spore bias as a property of cell popula- tions (strains), or as a result of individual cell choices during the developmental process. These two points of view are often held equivalent and used inter- changeably. While the population-level view allows for more direct evolutionary inference, however, the cell-level interpretation reveals that such evolutionary predictions may be modified if developmental mechanisms, such as dependence on the environment and intrinsic unpredictability of cell fate choices, are taken into account. We conclude by proposing a set of open questions that in our opinion lie at the core of a multi-scale description of aggregative life cycles, where the formulation of predictive evolutionary models would include cell-level mechanisms responsible for spore bias alongside population-level descriptors of multicellular organization.

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Complex interactions underpin social behaviour in Dictyostelium giganteum

Cited by 12 publications

References 40 publications

Enforcing Cooperation in the Social Amoebae

Enforcing Cooperation in the Social Amoebae

Many roads lead to Rome: Neutral phenotypes in microorganisms

Social Conflicts in <em>Dictyostelium discoideum</em> : A Matter of Scales

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