The DOI matches its Crossref record; 23 of the 23 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Public goods and cheating in microbes
Open accessAbstract
Communication and cooperation are not restricted to complex, higher organisms. Microbes, too, perform a variety of collective, multicellular behaviors, including biofilm formation, quorum sensing, nutrient acquisition, and dispersal. The products of these microbial cooperative behaviors are generally referred to as public goods. Here we describe the nature of microbial public goods, the associated problem of cheating, and ways in which microbes maintain public goods in the face of cheating. We highlight work in a growing field at the interface of microbiology, evolution, and ecology that combines multiple approaches in experimental evolution, genetics, and mathematical modeling.
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“For example, predator dilution effects require only that individuals remain close to each other [28], as do some public goods in bacteria [18].”
From The social origins of consciousness (2025) · cites this paper as [18]
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Self-citationSolutions to the Public Goods Dilemma in Bacterial Biofilms
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Varga, T. R., Hixson, K. K., Ahkami, A. H., Sher, A. W., Barnes, M., Chu, R., Battu, A. K., Nicora, C., Winkler, T. E., Reno, L. R., et al. (2020) · Frontiers in Plant Science · doi:10.3389/fpls.2020.567918 · Cited by 122
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Metadata
- Authors
- Smith, P., & Schuster, M.
- Affiliations
- Oregon State University (US)
- ORCID
- Smith, Parker
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-06
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- R442-R447
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2948332211
- Cited by
- 240
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 29 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 41.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensing
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Keywords
- cheating, microbial cooperation, quorum sensing, biofilm formation, nutrient acquisition, dispersal, experimental evolution, mathematical modeling, microbial evolution, microbial ecology
- MeSH terms
- Biological Evolution, Models, Biological, Microbial Interactions
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