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Simulation of Yeast Cooperation in 2D

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Abstract

Evolution of cooperation has been an active research area in evolutionary biology in decades. An important type of cooperation is developed from group selection, when individuals form spatial groups to prevent them from foreign invasions. In this paper, we study the evolution of cooperation in a mixed population of cooperating and cheating yeast strains in 2D with the interactions among the yeast cells restricted to their small neighborhoods. We conduct a computer simulation based on a game theoretic model and show that cooperation is increased when the interactions are spatially restricted, whether the game is of a prisoner’s dilemma, snow drifting, or mutual benefit type. We study the evolution of homogeneous groups of cooperators or cheaters and describe the conditions for them to sustain or expand in an opponent population. We show that under certain spatial restrictions, cooperator groups are able to sustain and expand as group sizes become large, while cheater groups fail to expand and keep them from collapse.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Prof. Jeff Gore of MIT for kindly providing us with the MATLAB code for generating some of the graphical results in his paper and for his helpful suggestions on how to proceed in our simulation. We would also like to thank the anonymous referees whose comments and suggestions helped improve and clarify this manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. M. Wang

    Present address: Mathematical Biosciences Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    M. Wang

  2. Department of Mathematics, Program on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Y. Huang & Z. Wu

Authors
  1. M. Wang
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  2. Y. Huang
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  3. Z. Wu
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Correspondence to M. Wang.

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Wang, M., Huang, Y. & Wu, Z. Simulation of Yeast Cooperation in 2D. Bull Math Biol 78, 531–555 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-016-0153-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-016-0153-5

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