An experimental study of strong reciprocity in bacteria

Strong reciprocity, whereby cooperators punish non-cooperators, may help to explain the evolutionary success of cooperative behaviours. However, theory suggests that selection for strong reciprocity can depend upon tight genetic linkage between cooperation and punishment, to avoid the strategy being outcompeted by non-punishing cooperators. We tested this hypothesis using experimental populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which cooperate by producing iron-scavenging siderophores and, in this context, punish non-cooperators with toxins. Consistent with theory, we show that cooperative punishers can indeed invade cheats, but only when the traits are tightly linked. These results emphasize that punishment is only likely to be favoured when the punishment itself leads to a direct or indirect fitness benefit to the actor.

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  Biology Letters

• Publication date

  2014-02-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1098/rsbl.2013.1069PMID 24501270PMCID 3949375
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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