Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 104, Issue 21, Pages 8913-8917Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0702723104
Keywords
altruism; cellular slime molds; conflict; Dictyostelium discoideum; kin selection
Categories
Funding
- NLM NIH HHS [T15 LM007093, 5T15 LM07093] Funding Source: Medline
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The control of cheating is important for understanding major transitions in evolution, from the simplest genes to the most complex societies. Cooperative systems can be ruined if cheaters that lower group productivity are able to spread. Kin-selection theory predicts that high genetic relatedness can limit cheating, because separation of cheaters and cooperators limits opportunities to cheat and promotes selection against low-fitness groups of cheaters. Here, we confirm this prediction for the social amoeba Dictyosteflum discoideum; relatedness in natural wild groups is so high that socially destructive cheaters should not spread. We illustrate in the laboratory how high relatedness can control a mutant that would destroy cooperation at low relatedness. Finally, we demonstrate that, as predicted, mutant cheaters do not normally harm cooperation in a natural population. Ourfinclings show how altruism is preserved from the disruptive effects of such mutant cheaters and how exceptionally high relatedness among cells is important in promoting the cooperation that underlies multicellular development.
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