Evolutionary dynamics of nitrogen fixation in the legume-rhizobia symbiosis.

ABSTRACT: The stabilization of host-symbiont mutualism against the emergence of parasitic individuals is pivotal to the evolution of cooperation. One of the most famous symbioses occurs between legumes and their colonizing rhizobia, in which rhizobia extract nutrients (or benefits) from legume plants while supplying them with nitrogen resources produced by nitrogen fixation (or costs). Natural environments, however, are widely populated by ineffective rhizobia that extract benefits without paying costs and thus proliferate more efficiently than nitrogen-fixing cooperators. How and why this mutualism becomes stabilized and evolutionarily persists has been extensively discussed. To better understand the evolutionary dynamics of this symbiosis system, we construct a simple model based on the continuous

SUBMITTER: Fujita H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3972148 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature