title: Sharing the sandbox: Evolutionary mechanisms that maintain bacterial cooperation.
abstract: Microbes are now known to participate in an extensive repertoire of cooperative behaviors such as biofilm formation, production of extracellular public-goods, group motility, and higher-ordered multicellular structures. A fundamental question is how these cooperative tasks are maintained in the face of non-cooperating defector cells. Recently, a number of molecular mechanisms including facultative participation, spatial sorting, and policing have been discovered to stabilize cooperation. Often these different mechanisms work in concert to reinforce cooperation. In this review, we describe bacterial cooperation and the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms that maintain it.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bruger
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Waters
keywords: bacterial cooperation; biofilm; microbes