Evolution of cooperative cross-feeding could be less challenging than originally thought

The act of cross-feeding whereby unrelated species exchange nutrients is a common feature of microbial interactions and could be considered a form of reciprocal altruism or reciprocal cooperation. Past theoretical work suggests that the evolution of cooperative cross-feeding in nature may be more ch...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2010-11, Vol.5 (11), p.e14121-e14121
Main Authors: Estrela, Sylvie, Gudelj, Ivana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Altruism
Animals
Bacteria
Biological Evolution
Cheating
Computational Biology/Evolutionary Modeling
Cooperation
Cooperative Behavior
Ecology/Environmental Microbiology
Ecology/Evolutionary Ecology
Ecology/Population Ecology
Ecology/Theoretical Ecology
Environmental impact
Evolution
Evolutionary Biology/Microbial Evolution and Genomics
Feeders
Feeding
Feeding Behavior - physiology
Humans
Mathematical models
Metabolism
Metabolites
Microbiological Phenomena
Microorganisms
Models, Theoretical
Natural populations
Nutrients
Population
Populations
Species extinction
Symbiosis - physiology
Syntrophism
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Summary:The act of cross-feeding whereby unrelated species exchange nutrients is a common feature of microbial interactions and could be considered a form of reciprocal altruism or reciprocal cooperation. Past theoretical work suggests that the evolution of cooperative cross-feeding in nature may be more challenging than for other types of cooperation. Here we re-evaluate a mathematical model used previously to study persistence of cross-feeding and conclude that the maintenance of cross-feeding interactions could be favoured for a larger parameter ranges than formerly observed. Strikingly, we also find that large populations of cross-feeders are not necessarily vulnerable to extinction from an initially small number of cheats who receive the benefit of cross-feeding but do not reciprocate in this cooperative interaction. This could explain the widespread cooperative cross-feeding observed in natural populations.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0014121