Editor's Summary

6 July 2006

Changing places

These T4 page and their E. coli hosts are the model for a typical 'victim-exploiter' interaction in a study of the role of migration patterns in a 'tragedy of the commons' competition for limited resources within fragmented communities. In this host-pathogen system, growing in 96-well microtitre plates, coexistence, stability and evolution within the separated communities depend critically on migration: restricted migration can promote restraint in the use of the common resource. In this experiment and in theory, highly connected social networks favour virulence.

Letter: Local migration promotes competitive restraint in a host–pathogen 'tragedy of the commons'

Benjamin Kerr, Claudia Neuhauser, Brendan J. M. Bohannan & Antony M. Dean

doi:10.1038/nature04864

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