Metabolism and the Evolution of Social Behavior

Kerry E. Boyle, Hilary T. Monaco, Maxime Deforet, Jinyuan Yan, Zhe Wang, Kyu Rhee, Joao B. Xavier
2017 Molecular biology and evolution  
How does metabolism influence social behavior? This fundamental question at the interface of molecular biology and social evolution is hard to address with experiments in animals, and therefore, we turned to a simple microbial system: swarming in the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Using genetic engineering, we excised a locus encoding a key metabolic regulator and disrupted P. aeruginosa's metabolic prudence, the regulatory mechanism that controls expression of swarming public goods and
more » ... cts this social behavior from exploitation by cheaters. Then, using experimental evolution, we followed the joint evolution of the genome, the metabolome and the social behavior as swarming reevolved. New variants emerged spontaneously with mutations that reorganized the metabolome and compensated in distinct ways for the disrupted metabolic prudence. These experiments with a unicellular organism provide a detailed view of how metabolism-currency of all physiological processes-can determine the costs and benefits of a social behavior and ultimately influence how an organism behaves towards other organisms of the same species.
doi:10.1093/molbev/msx174 pmid:28595344 pmcid:PMC5850603 fatcat:h2xx6s4muvbzflxe65ezsvmac4