School of Biological Sciences, Biosciences Building, University of Liverpool, Crown Street, Liverpool L69 7ZB, United Kingdom.
Ecology. 2010 Feb;91(2):334-40. doi: 10.1890/09-0293.1.
The role of ecological processes in the evolution of social traits is increasingly recognized. Here, we explore, using a general theoretical model and experiments with bacteria, the joint effects of disturbance frequency and resource supply on the evolution of cooperative biofilm formation. Our results demonstrate that cooperation tends to peak at intermediate frequencies of disturbance but that the peak shifts toward progressively higher frequencies of disturbance as resource supply increases. This appears to arise due to increased growth rates at higher levels of resource supply, which allows cooperators to more rapidly exceed the density threshold above which cooperation is beneficial following catastrophic disturbance. These findings demonstrate for the first time the importance of interactions between ecological processes in the evolution of public-goods cooperation and suggest that cooperation can be favored by selection across a wide range of ecological conditions.
生态过程在社会特征进化中的作用正日益受到重视。在这里，我们利用一个通用的理论模型和细菌实验，探讨了干扰频率和资源供应对合作生物膜形成进化的联合影响。我们的结果表明，合作在干扰频率的中间水平时趋于达到峰值，但随着资源供应的增加，峰值逐渐向更高的干扰频率移动。这似乎是由于在更高的资源供应水平下，增长率的增加，使得合作者在灾难性干扰后，能够更快地超过合作有益的密度阈值。这些发现首次证明了生态过程在公共物品合作进化中的相互作用的重要性，并表明合作可以在广泛的生态条件下受到选择的青睐。
