Effect of Local Population Uncertainty on Cooperation in Bacteria

TL;DR

This paper models how uncertainty in local bacterial population estimates affects cooperative behavior, showing that population uncertainty can promote cooperation even without explicit coordination.

Contribution

It introduces a game-theoretic model incorporating population uncertainty in bacterial cooperation, highlighting its impact on behavioral dynamics.

Findings

Population uncertainty influences cooperation levels.

Uncertainty can compensate for lack of explicit coordination.

System parameters affect sensitivity to population estimates.

Abstract

Bacteria populations rely on mechanisms such as quorum sensing to coordinate complex tasks that cannot be achieved by a single bacterium. Quorum sensing is used to measure the local bacteria population density, and it controls cooperation by ensuring that a bacterium only commits the resources for cooperation when it expects its neighbors to reciprocate. This paper proposes a simple model for sharing a resource in a bacterial environment, where knowledge of the population influences each bacterium's behavior. Game theory is used to model the behavioral dynamics, where the net payoff (i.e., utility) for each bacterium is a function of its current behavior and that of the other bacteria. The game is first evaluated with perfect knowledge of the population. Then, the unreliability of diffusion introduces uncertainty in the local population estimate and changes the perceived payoffs. The results demonstrate the sensitivity to the system parameters and how population uncertainty can overcome a lack of explicit coordination.