• DOI:10.1126/science.1208473
• Corpus ID: 44812991

Reciprocal Rewards Stabilize Cooperation in the Mycorrhizal Symbiosis

@article{Kiers2011ReciprocalRS,
  title={Reciprocal Rewards Stabilize Cooperation in the Mycorrhizal Symbiosis},
  author={E. Toby Kiers and Marie Duhamel and Yugandhar Beesetty and Jerry A. Mensah and Oscar Franken and Erik Verbruggen and Carl R. Fellbaum and George A. Kowalchuk and Miranda M. Hart and Alberto Bago and Todd M. Palmer and Stuart Andrew West and Philippe Vandenkoornhuyse and Jan Jansa and Heike B{\"u}cking},
  journal={Science},
  year={2011},
  volume={333},
  pages={880 - 882}
}

• E. Kiers, Marie Duhamel, +12 authors H. Bücking
• Published 12 August 2011
• Environmental Science
• Science

Plants and their associated fungi reward partners that offer the best resources to sustain mutualism in complex systems. Plants and their arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal symbionts interact in complex underground networks involving multiple partners. This increases the potential for exploitation and defection by individuals, raising the question of how partners maintain a fair, two-way transfer of resources. We manipulated cooperation in plants and fungal partners to show that plants can detect, discriminate, and reward the best fungal partners with more carbohydrates. In turn, their fungal partners enforce cooperation by increasing nutrient transfer only to those roots providing more carbohydrates. On the basis of these observations we conclude that, unlike many other mutualisms, the symbiont cannot be “enslaved.” Rather, the mutualism is evolutionarily stable because control is bidirectional, and partners offering the best rate of exchange are rewarded.