Social behaviour in yeasts

Several yeast strains are capable of forming multicellular structures such as hyphae, biofilms, floccs and even complex organized colonies. Cell to cell interactions are important to maintain such multicellular objects as cells are producing various adhesive factors supporting the whole colony. Such cooperative behavior can be exploited by cheater cells that do not produce the adhesive factor. The interaction between cooperating and cheating cells can be captured by evolutionary game theory and the spatial stucture of the colony by network theory. We combine these concept in a modeling tool that can simulate the dynamical changes in network organization as a result of interactions between cooperators and cheaters