Infographic: Curbing the Cheaters

From spatial structuring to policing, cooperative bacteria have a wide toolkit to contain the spread of cheaters.

Written byMariella Bodemeier Loayza Careaga, PhD

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In cooperative bacterial communities, cheaters may arise. These bacteria do not pay the cost of producing public goods but still consume the shareable resources produced by other cooperative bacteria.

Infographic showing how bacterial cheaters benefit from cooperators in bacterial communities

Strategies used by cooperators to curb the cheater population in a bacterial community

Spatial structuring and kin selection

As cooperators build biofilms, they keep their kin close and limit cheaters’ access to communal resources.

Kin discrimination

Cooperators discriminate kin from non-kin and share resources only with highly related cells.

Policing

Cooperating bacteria can sanction cheaters by producing diffusible toxins together with a resource.

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Meet the Author

Mariella Bodemeier Loayza Careaga, PhD
Mariella joined The Scientist in 2023. Before that, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences studying sex differences on the effects of chronic stress and traumatic brain injury. Mariella holds a master’s and a PhD in neuroscience from the Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, Brazil, and a certificate in Science Communication from the University of California, San Diego.
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