Related papers: Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Response of Quorum-S…
In quorum sensing (QS), bacteria exchange molecular signals to work together. An analytically-tractable model is presented for characterizing QS signal propagation within a population of bacteria and the number of responsive cooperative…
Bacteria populations rely on mechanisms such as quorum sensing to coordinate complex tasks that cannot be achieved by a single bacterium. Quorum sensing is used to measure the local bacteria population density, and it controls cooperation…
The exchange of small molecular signals within microbial populations is generally referred to as quorum sensing (QS). QS is ubiquitous in nature and enables microorganisms to respond to fluctuations in living environments by working…
Within the context of evolution, an altruistic act that benefits the receiving individual at the expense of the acting individual is a puzzling phenomenon. An extreme form of altruism can be found in colicinogenic E. coli. These suicidal…
Features of the CRISPR-Cas system, in which bacteria integrate small segments of phage genome (spacers) into their DNA to neutralize future attacks, suggest that its effect is not limited to individual bacteria but may control the fate and…
We study the role of Quorum Sensing (QS) in the growth of bacterial colonies and in the bioluminescence produced. These two phenomena are both regulated by QS and the experimental data show a non-trivial correlation between them. It is also…
Microbial communities frequently communicate via quorum sensing (QS), where cells produce, secrete, and respond to a threshold level of an autoinducer (AI) molecule, thereby modulating gene expression. However, the biology of QS remains…
Despite the wealth of empirical and theoretical studies, the origin and maintenance of cooperation is still an evolutionary riddle. In this context, ecological life-history traits which affect the efficiency of selection may play a role,…
The n-person Prisoner's Dilemma is a widely used model for populations where individuals interact in groups. The evolutionary stability of populations has been analysed in the literature for the case where mutations in the population may be…
Bacteria generally live in complicated structures called biofilms, consisting of communicating bacterial colonies and extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). Since biofilms are related to detrimental effects such as infection or antibiotic…
Bacteria communicate using external chemical signals called autoinducers (AI) in a process known as quorum sensing (QS). QS efficiency is reduced by both limitations of AI diffusion and potential interference from neighboring strains. There…
In this work, we analyse the relationship between heterogeneity and cooperation. Previous investigations suggest that this relation is nontrivial, as some authors found that heterogeneity sustains cooperation, while others obtained…
Cooperation is a difficult proposition in the face of Darwinian selection. Those that defect have an evolutionary advantage over cooperators who should therefore die out. However, spatial structure enables cooperators to survive through the…
Understanding cooperative behavior in biological and social systems constitutes a scientific challenge, being the object of intense research over the past decades. Many mechanisms have been proposed to explain the presence and persistence…
Ecological and evolutionary dynamics have been historically regarded as unfolding at broadly separated timescales. However, these two types of processes are nowadays well documented to much more tightly than traditionally assumed,…
The evolution of cooperation often depends upon population structure, yet nearly all models of cooperation implicitly assume that this structure remains static. This is a simplifying assumption, because most organisms possess genetic traits…
Levels of sociality in nature vary widely. Some species are solitary; others live in family groups; some form complex multi-family societies. Increased levels of social interaction can allow for the spread of useful innovations and…
We study the interplay of population growth and evolutionary dynamics using a stochastic model based on birth and death events. In contrast to the common assumption of an independent population size, evolution can be strongly affected by…
The social organization of microorganisms has long been a fascinating and challenging subject in both biology and sociology. In these organisms, the role of the individual is far less dominant than that of the community, which functions as…
Bacterial quorum sensing is the communication that takes place between bacteria as they secrete certain molecules into the intercellular medium that later get absorbed by the secreting cells themselves and by others. Depending on cell…