Maximizing growth yield and dispersal via quorum sensing promotes cooperation in Vibrio bacteria

Quorum sensing (QS) is a form of bacterial chemical communication that regulates cellular phenotypes, including certain cooperative behaviors, in response to environmental and demographic changes. Despite the existence of proposed mechanisms that stabilize QS against defector exploitation, it is unclear if or how QS cooperators can proliferate in some model systems in populations mostly consisting of defectors. We predicted that growth in fragmented subpopulations could allow QS cooperators to invade a QS defector population. This could occur despite cooperators having lower relative fitnesses than defectors due to favored weighting of genotypes that produce larger populations of bacteria. Mixed metapopulations of Vibrio QS-proficient or unconditional cooperators and QS defectors were diluted and fragmented into isolated subpopulations in an environment that requires QS-regulated public good production to achieve larger population yields. Under these conditions, we observed global invasions of both cooperator genotypes into populations composed of primarily defectors. This spatially dependent increase in cooperator frequency was replicated for QS cooperators when mixed populations were competed in soft agar motility plates under conditions that allowed cooperators to disperse and outcompete defectors at the population edge, despite being less motile in isolation than defectors. These competition results show that the coordinated growth and dispersal of QS cooperators to additional resources is heavily favored in comparison to unconditional cooperation, and that dispersal of cooperators by motility into new environments, examined here in laboratory populations, constitutes a key mechanism for maintaining QS-regulated cooperation in the face of defection.