Cheating in Mutualisms Promotes Diversity and Complexity

Mutualisms such as those between flowering plants and their pollinators are common in nature. Yet understanding their persistence in the face of cheaters and identifying the mechanisms behind their stunning diversity provide formidable challenges for evolutionary biologists. To shed light onto these questions, we introduce an individual-based model of two coevolving species in which individuals of one species use a Boolean circuit to discriminate between cooperators and cheaters in the other species. This conveys the idea that interactions are often mediated by complex biological processes rather than the matching of a single trait, as often assumed in models of coevolution. Our results show that cheating promotes diversification and complex discrimination mechanisms at the cost of a higher risk for mutualism to collapse. This result is mediated by an inverse relationship between mutational robustness and organismal complexity.

Automated summary

Mutualisms between flowering plants and pollinators are common in nature, but understanding their diversity and persistence is challenging. A model simulation reveals that cheating behavior promotes diversity and complex discrimination mechanisms in mutualistic relationships, but also increases the risk of collapse.