English

Theory of cooperation in a micro-organismal snow-drift game

Biological Physics 2015-05-20 v3 Cell Behavior Populations and Evolution

Abstract

We present a mean field model for the phase diagram of a community of micro-organisms, interacting through their metabolism so that they are, in effect, engaging in a cooperative social game. We show that as a function of the concentration of the nutrients glucose and histidine, the community undergoes a phase transition separating a state in which one strain is dominant to a state which is characterized by coexisting populations. Our results are in good agreement with recent experimental results, correctly predicting quantitative trends and the phase diagram.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1011.0510,
  title  = {Theory of cooperation in a micro-organismal snow-drift game},
  author = {Zhenyu Wang and Nigel Goldenfeld},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.0510},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

4 pages, 2 figures