Entry Date:
December 16, 2015

Conditions That Favor the Evolution of Cooperative Behaviors

Principal Investigator Jeff Gore


The Gore Lab uses microbes such as yeast and bacteria to study how evolution can favor cooperative behaviors. As a postdoctoral fellow in the van Oudenaarden Lab Jeff developed sucrose metabolism in yeast as a model cooperative system (Gore et al, Nature (2009). In this study, we found that cooperators have preferential access to the sugar that they create, thus allowing the cooperators to survive even when in the presence of cheaters.