10.5061/DRYAD.3V0N3
Ghoul, Melanie
University of Oxford
West, Stuart A.
University of Oxford
Diggle, Steve P.
Pennsylvania State University
Griffin, Ashleigh S.
University of Oxford
Data from: An experimental test of whether cheating is context dependent
Dryad
dataset
2014
Cheating
Social evolution
Microbes
2014-01-10T20:19:00Z
2014-01-10T20:19:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.12319
336575 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Microbial cells rely on cooperative behaviours that can breakdown as a
result of exploitation by cheats. Recent work on cheating in microbes,
however, has produced examples of populations benefiting from the presence
of cheats and/or cooperative behaviours being maintained despite the
presence of cheats. These observations have been presented as evidence for
selection favouring cheating at the population level. This apparent
contradiction arises when cheating is defined simply by the reduced
expression of a cooperative trait and not in terms of the social costs and
benefits of the trait under investigation. Here, we use two social traits,
quorum sensing and iron-scavenging siderophore production in Pseudomonas
aeruginosa, to illustrate the importance of defining cheating by the
social costs and benefits. We show that whether a strain is a cheat
depends on the costs and benefits associated with the social and abiotic
environment and not the absolute expression of a cooperative trait.
Comp assays, lasR, PAO1OD600 monocultures strain A,B,COD600, RFU, strains
A,B,CW values of strains A,B,CSupp data-PAO1-LasI, lasB OD600, RLU-gene
expressions