What can microbial genetics teach sociobiology?

Foster, Kevin R.; Parkinson, Katie; Thompson, Christopher

doi:10.1016/j.tig.2006.12.003

Cited by 89 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…• the specific features of microbial coexistence, such as resource enrichment [71,72], fluctuation enhancement [73], quorum sensing [74,75], group selection [76,77], development of cooperation [77][78][79], and evolutionary race [80,81], can be illuminating for understanding, characterizing, and organizing both technological as well as social systems [82].…”

Section: Symbiosis In Microbial Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling symbiosis by interactions through species carrying capacities

Yukalov

Yukalova

Sornette

2012

Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena

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We introduce a mathematical model of symbiosis between different species by taking into account the influence of each species on the carrying capacities of the others. The modeled entities can pertain to biological and ecological societies or to social, economic and financial societies. Our model includes three basic types: symbiosis with direct mutual interactions, symbiosis with asymmetric interactions, and symbiosis without direct interactions. In all cases, we provide a complete classification of all admissible dynamical regimes. The proposed model of symbiosis turned out to be very rich, as it exhibits four qualitatively different regimes: convergence to stationary states, unbounded exponential growth, finite-time singularity, and finite-time death or extinction of species.

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Section: Symbiosis In Microbial Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling symbiosis by interactions through species carrying capacities

Yukalov

Yukalova

Sornette

2012

Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena

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“…Recent years have seen growing interest in understanding social evolution in microbes (Crespi, 2001;Travisano and Velicer, 2004;West et al, 2006;Foster et al, 2007), probably for two major reasons: first, microbes offer very tractable experimental systems for studying the ecology and evolution of social traits in real time and under carefully controlled conditions. Second, microbial sociality has important applied implications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kin selection and the evolution of virulence

2008

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Social interactions between conspecific parasites are partly dependent on the relatedness of interacting parasites (kin selection), which, in turn, is predicted to affect the extent of damage they cause their hosts (virulence). High relatedness is generally assumed to favour less competitive interactions, but the relationship between relatedness and virulence is crucially dependent on the social behaviour in question. Here, we discuss the rather limited body of experimental work that addresses how kin-selected social behaviours affect virulence. First, if prudent use of host resources (a form of cooperation) maximizes the transmission success of the parasite population, decreased relatedness is predicted to result in increased host exploitation and virulence. Experimental support for this well-established theoretical result is surprisingly limited. Second, if parasite within-host growth rate is a positive function of cooperation (that is, when individuals need to donate public goods, such as extracellular enzymes), virulence is predicted to increase with increasing relatedness. The limited studies testing this hypothesis are broadly consistent with this prediction. Finally, there is some empirical evidence supporting theory that suggests that spiteful behaviours are maximized at intermediate degrees of relatedness, which, in turn, leads to minimal virulence because of the reduced growth rate of the infecting population. We highlight the need for further thorough experimentation on the role of kin selection in the evolution of virulence and identify additional biological complexities to these simple frameworks.

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“…Cheating is considered a major problem in the evolution of cooperation (13)(14)(15). Cheaters are individuals that reap the benefit of a social trait (for example, the production of ''public goods'') while contributing less than average to the cost.…”

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confidence: 99%

Social cheating in Pseudomonas aeruginosa quorum sensing

Sandoz¹,

Mitzimberg

Schuster

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

466

620

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In a process termed quorum sensing, bacteria use diffusible chemical signals to coordinate cell density-dependent gene expression. In the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, quorum sensing controls hundreds of genes, many of which encode extracellular virulence factors. Quorum sensing is required for P. aeruginosa virulence in animal models. Curiously, quorum sensing-deficient variants, most of which carry a mutation in the gene encoding the central quorum sensing regulator lasR, are frequently isolated from acute and chronic infections. The mechanism for their emergence is not known. Here we provide experimental evidence suggesting that these lasR mutants are social cheaters that cease production of quorum-controlled factors and take advantage of their production by the group. We detected an emerging subpopulation of lasR mutants after Ϸ100 generations of in vitro evolution of the P. aeruginosa wild-type strain under culture conditions that require quorum sensing for growth. Under such conditions, quorum sensing appears to impose a metabolic burden on the proliferating bacterial cell, because quorum-controlled genes not normally induced until cessation of growth were highly expressed early in growth, and a defined lasR mutant showed a growth advantage when cocultured with the parent strain. The emergence of quorumsensing-deficient variants in certain environments is therefore an indicator of high quorum sensing activity of the bacterial population as a whole. It does not necessarily indicate that quorum sensing is insignificant, as has previously been suggested. Thus, novel antivirulence strategies aimed at disrupting bacterial communication may be particularly effective in such clinical settings.acyl-homoserine lactone ͉ bacterial communication ͉ evolution ͉ lasR ͉ virulence

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What can microbial genetics teach sociobiology?

Cited by 89 publications

References 67 publications

Modeling symbiosis by interactions through species carrying capacities

Modeling symbiosis by interactions through species carrying capacities

Kin selection and the evolution of virulence

Social cheating in Pseudomonas aeruginosa quorum sensing

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