Cheating on the Edge

Authored by Lee Alan Dugatkin, Aaron D. Dugatkin, Ronald M. Atlas, Michael H. Perlin

Date Published: 2008-07-23

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002763

Sponsors: Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Louisville United States National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Platforms: NetLogo

Model Documentation: Other Narrative

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

We present the results of an individual agent-based model of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Our model examines antibiotic resistance when two strategies exist: “producers”-who secrete a substance that breaks down antibiotics-and nonproducers (”cheats”) who do not secrete, or carry the machinery associated with secretion. The model allows for populations of up to 10,000, in which bacteria are affected by their nearest neighbors, and we assume cheaters die when there are no producers in their neighborhood. Each of 10,000 slots on our grid (a torus) could be occupied by a producer or a nonproducer, or could (temporarily) be unoccupied. The most surprising and dramatic result we uncovered is that when producers and nonproducers coexist at equilibrium, nonproducers are almost always found on the edges of clusters of producers.

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