The Black Queen hypothesis (BQH) is a reductive evolution theory which seeks to explain how natural selection (as opposed to genetic drift) can drive gene loss.
Put another way, the black queen hypothesis is concerned with the conditions under which it is advantageous to lose certain biological functions.
By accessing resources without the need to generate it themselves, these microbes conserve energy and streamline their genomes to enable faster replication.
[3] In the following year, Morris wrote another publication on the subject alongside Richard Lenski and Erik Zinser more fully refining and fleshing out the hypothesis.
[4] Compared to the Red Queen hypothesis, it is fairly recent; thus, it has not been thoroughly tested and the mechanisms driving it have not been fully elucidated.
[7] A "strong version" of the BQH has been proposed, which suggests that there are no "keystone" members of a microbial community which take on all leaky functions.
[7] More recently, a "Gray Queen Hypothesis" has been posited which seeks to explain the same phenomena in a related way, but through the lenses of constructive neutral evolution.
[15] Quorum sensing is a regulatory process that plays a role in the management of partially privatized or mixed goods, as outlined in various studies.
[19] The findings indicate that if autoinducers carry a cost, partial privatization will not give an evolutionary advantage to quorum sensing.
The reasoning behind this conclusion is twofold: From this model, it can be inferred that partial privatization might have been essential in supporting an early form of quorum sensing, where autoinducers were considered metabolic byproducts and thus had no associated costs.