Spontaneous nongenetic variation of group size creates cheater-free groups of social microbes

Michaela Amherd, Gregory J Velicer, Olaya Rendueles and Luke HolmanHandling Editor

Behavioral Ecology, 2018, vol. 29, issue 2, 393-403

Abstract: Social microbes are exposed to cheaters that exploit the advantages of cooperative actions without paying their fair share. Upon starvation, myxobacterial cells cooperatively aggregate into discrete fruiting bodies containing stress-resistant spores. Fruiting bodies formed from a genetically identical population can vary greatly in the number of spores that they carry. We show that such variation allows the exclusion of cheaters from some fruiting bodies and can be a mechanism to maintain cooperation.

Keywords: bet hedging; bottleneck; multicellular development; natural variation; phenotypic heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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