Bacteria often live within matrix-embedded communities, termed biofilms, which are now
understood to be a major mode of microbial life. The study of biofilms has revealed their vast …

Infectious diseases are a threat to human health and a hindrance to societal development.
Consequently, the spread of diseases in both time and space has been widely studied …

Microbial communities are enigmatically diverse. We propose a novel view of processes
likely affecting microbial assemblages, which could be viewed as the Great American …

The scientific study of networks-computer, social, and biological-has received an enormous
amount of interest in recent years. However, the network approach has been applied to the …

Mutualisms, beneficial interactions between species, are expected to be unstable because
delivery of benefit likely involves fitness costs and selection should favour partners that …

Many of the most important properties of human groups–including properties that may give
one group an evolutionary advantage over another–are properly defined only at the level of …

The root systems of most agronomic crops are colonized by diverse assemblages of
arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), varying in the functional benefits (eg nutrient transfer …

Empirical studies of sexual traits continue to generate conflicting results, leading to a
growing awareness that the current understanding of this topic is limited. Here we argue that …

Biological market theory has been used successfully to explain cooperative behavior in
many animal species. Microbes also engage in cooperative behaviors, both with hosts and …

Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 546–551 Abstract The ubiquity of cooperation in nature is
puzzling because cooperators can be exploited by defectors. Recent theoretical work shows …