Interspecific social interactions shape public goods production in natural microbial communities

Abstract

AbstractSome microbial public goods benefit conspecifics, as well as other species. Here, we use evolution and competition experiments to determine how exploitation of public goods by the wider microbial community shapes the production of an interspecific public good: metal-detoxifying siderophores. By simultaneously studying whole microbial communities and an embedded focal species, we show that interspecific exploitation results in both ecological selection against microbial taxa that produce relatively large amounts of siderophores, and evolution of reduced siderophore production within taxa over similar time scales. Our findings demonstrate the crucial role of interspecific interactions in shaping microbial social behaviours.One sentence summary –Interspecific exploitation shapes the evolution and ecology of public goods production