Resource abundance and the critical transition to cooperation.
J Evol Biol
; 30(4): 750-761, 2017 04.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28036143
ABSTRACT
Cooperation is abundant in nature, occurring at all levels of biological complexity. Yet cooperation is continually threatened by subversion from noncooperating cheaters. Previous studies have shown that cooperation can nevertheless be maintained when the benefits that cooperation provides to relatives outweigh the associated costs. These fitness costs and benefits are not fixed properties, but can be affected by the environment in which populations reside. Here, we describe how one environmental factor, resource abundance, decisively affects the evolution of cooperative public goods production in two independent evolving systems. In the Avida digital evolution platform, populations evolved in environments with different levels of a required resource, whereas populations of Vibrio cholerae evolved in the presence of different nutrient concentrations. In both systems, cooperators and cheaters co-existed stably in resource-rich environments, whereas cheaters dominated in resource-poor environments. These two outcomes were separated by a sharp transition that occurred at a critical level of resource. These results offer new insights into how the environment affects the evolution of cooperation and highlight the challenges that populations of cooperators face when they experience environmental change.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Ambiente
/
Evolución Biológica
/
Modelos Teóricos
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Evol Biol
Asunto de la revista:
BIOLOGIA
Año:
2017
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos