Relatedness and the evolution of mechanisms to divide labor in microorganisms

Journal article

Abstract:: Division of labor occurs when cooperating individuals specialize to perform different tasks. In bacteria and other microorganisms, some species divide labor by random specialization, where an individual's role is determined by random fluctuations in biochemical reactions within the cell. Other species divide labor by coordinating across individuals to determine which cells will perform which task, using mechanisms such as between-cell signaling. However, previous theory, examining the evolution of mechanisms to divide labor between reproductives and sterile helpers, has only considered clonal populations, where there is no potential for conflict between individuals. We used a mixture of analytical and simulation models to examine nonclonal populations and found that: (a) intermediate levels of coordination can be favored, between the extreme of no coordination (random) and full coordination; (b) as relatedness decreases, coordinated division of labor is less likely to be favored. Our results can help explain why coordinated division of labor is relatively rare in bacteria, where groups may frequently be nonclonal.

Files:: Liu_et_al_2021_Relatedness_and_the.pdf

(Preview, Version of record, 1.5MB, Terms of use)

Language:: English
Keywords:: signaling

FFR

random specialization

social microbes

coordination

division of labor

evolutionary theory

cellular differentiation

phenotypic noise
Pubs id:: 1203204
Local pid:: pubs:1203204
Deposit date:: 2021-10-18

Copyright holder:: Liu et al
Rights statement:: © 2021 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record