Eco-evolutionary dynamics of complex social strategies in microbial communities

Item Type:	Article
Title:	Eco-evolutionary dynamics of complex social strategies in microbial communities
Creators Name:	Harrington, K.I. and Sanchez, A.
Abstract:	Microbial communities abound with examples of complex social interactions that shape microbial ecosystems. One particularly striking example is microbial cooperation via the secretion of public goods. It has been suggested by theory, and recently demonstrated experimentally, that microbial population dynamics and the evolutionary dynamics of cooperative social genes take place with similar timescales, and are linked to each other via an eco-evolutionary feedback loop. We overview this recent evidence, and discuss the possibility that a third process may be also part of this loop: phenotypic dynamics. Complex social strategies may be implemented at the single-cell level by means of gene regulatory networks. Thus gene expression plasticity or stochastic gene expression, both of which may occur with a timescale of one to a few generations, can potentially lead to a three-way coupling between behavioral dynamics, population dynamics, and evolutionary dynamics.
Keywords:	Eco-Evolutionary Dynanics, Microbial Communities, Social Games, Population Dynamics, Microbial Cooperation
Source:	Communicative & Integrative Biology
ISSN:	1942-0889
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Volume:	7
Number:	1
Page Range:	e28230
Date:	25 February 2014
Official Publication:	https://doi.org/10.4161/cib.28230
External Fulltext:	View full text on PubMed Central
PubMed:	View item in PubMed

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