Departamento de Microbiología y Parasitología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Circuto Escolar 411A, Copilco Universidad, Coyoacán, 04360, Mexico City, Mexico.
FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2020 Dec 30;97(1). doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiaa239.
Cooperation in microbial communities via production of public goods is susceptible to social cheating, since selfish individuals that do not contribute to their synthesis but benefit from their production thrive in the presence of cooperators. This behavior has been observed in the laboratory using bacterial and yeast models. Moreover, growing evidence indicates that cheating is frequent in natural microbial communities. In the laboratory, social cheating can promote population collapse or "tragedy of the commons" when excessive. Nevertheless, there are diverse mechanisms that counteract cheating in microbes, as well as theoretical and experimental evidence that suggests possible beneficial roles of social cheaters for the microbial populations. In this mini review manuscript we compile and discuss such possible roles.
微生物群落通过公共物品的生产进行合作，容易受到社会欺骗的影响，因为不参与合成但受益于其生产的自私个体在合作者存在的情况下会茁壮成长。这种行为已经在使用细菌和酵母模型的实验室中观察到。此外，越来越多的证据表明，欺骗在自然微生物群落中很常见。在实验室中，当社会欺骗过度时，它会促进种群崩溃或“公地悲剧”。然而，微生物中有多种对抗欺骗的机制，以及理论和实验证据表明，社会骗子可能对微生物种群有有益的作用。在这篇小型综述手稿中，我们汇编并讨论了这些可能的作用。
