ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014
Evolutionary limits to cooperation in microbial communities.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 116 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
116 citing papers in PubMed.
- Adaxial-abaxial leaf surface asymmetry is a key ecological driver of the phyllosphere microbiome.Journal of experimental botany · 2026Article
- Host-initiated microbial association leads to stable ectosymbiosis in an ecological model.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Obligate cross-feeding of metabolites is common in soil microbial communities.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Modulation of Innate Immunity by Short-Chain Fatty Acids in Probiotic and Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Therapies for the Treatment of Colon Disorders.Probiotics and antimicrobial proteins · 2026Review
- Competition between resident rhizosphere bacteria enhances phytopathogen suppression via emergent antagonism.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Mixed-species interactions constrain diversification and shape biofilm evolution.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Unraveling complexity in climate change effects on beneficial plant-microbe interactions: mechanisms, resilience, and future directions.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Substrate complexity and species number jointly shift the balance between competition and facilitation in a chitin-degrading bacterial consortium.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Boundary conditions for exploiting the cooperation ofApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Strengthen or Weaken: Evolutionary Directions of Cross-Feeding After Formation.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Review
- Metabolic ecology of microbiomes: Nutrient competition, host benefits, and community engineering.Cell host & microbe · 2025Review
- Carlos Asensio and the dawn of molecular microbial ecology.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2025Review
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- Article
- Multiplicity of type 6 secretion system toxins limits the evolution of resistance.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Mechanisms of cooperation in the plants-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi-bacteria continuum.The ISME journal · 2025Review
- Strain identity effects contribute more to Pseudomonas community functioning than strain interactions.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Exploring interspecific interaction variability in microbiota: A review.Engineering microbiology · 2024Review
- Unveiling the hidden world: How arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and its regulated core fungi modify the composition and metabolism of soybean rhizosphere microbiome.Environmental microbiome · 2024Article
56 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Microbes produce many compounds that are costly to a focal cell but promote the survival and reproduction of neighboring cells. This observation has led to the suggestion that microbial strains and species will commonly cooperate by exchanging compounds. Here, we examine this idea with an ecoevolutionary model where microbes make multiple secretions, which can be exchanged among genotypes. We show that cooperation between genotypes only evolves under specific demographic regimes characterized by intermediate genetic mixing. The key constraint on cooperative exchanges is a loss of autonomy: strains become reliant on complementary genotypes that may not be reliably encountered. Moreover, the form of cooperation that we observe arises through mutual exploitation that is related to cheating and "Black Queen" evolution for a single secretion. A major corollary is that the evolution of cooperative exchanges reduces community productivity relative to an autonomous strain that makes everything it needs. This prediction finds support in recent work from synthetic communities. Overall, our work suggests that natural selection will often limit cooperative exchanges in microbial communities and that, when exchanges do occur, they can be an inefficient solution to group living.
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