Enforced specialization fosters mutual cheating and not division of labour in the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

ABSTRACT: A common way for bacteria to cooperate is via the secretion of beneficial public goods (proteases, siderophores, biosurfactants) that can be shared amongst individuals in a group. Bacteria often simultaneously deploy multiple public goods with complementary functions. This raises the question whether natural selection could favour division of labour where subpopulations or species specialize in the production of a single public good, whilst sharing the complementary goods at the group level. Here we use an experimental system, where we mix engineered specialists of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa that can each only produce one of the two siderophores, pyochelin or pyoverdine and explore the conditions under which specialization can lead to division of labour. When growing pyochelin an

SUBMITTER: Mridha S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9323447 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature