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Nature 408, 917-919 (21 December 2000) | doi:10.1038/35050184

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Evolutionary biology: Cooperation can be dangerous

Richard H. Kessin

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In social situations, opportunities arise for some individuals to take advantage of others. This happens in wild populations of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.

Most of the organisms studied by developmental biologists — the fruitfly Drosophila, for instance — arise from a fertilized egg. So, apart from the mature reproductive cells, the cells from which these organisms are made are genetically identical.