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Science 3 January 2003:
Vol. 299. no. 5603, pp. 56 - 57
DOI: 10.1126/science.1080776
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Perspectives

ECOLOGY:
Social Slime Molds Meet Their Match

Bernard Crespi and Stevan Springer

Biologists have debated the existence of altruistic genes that recognize and aid copies of themselves. However, demonstrating such "green-beard" genes in biological systems has proved difficult. In their Perspective, Crespi and Springer describe an elegant set of experiments (Queller et al.) that identify a green-beard gene encoding a homophilic adhesion protein in the slime mold Dictyostelium.

The authors are in the Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Department of Biosciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. E-mail: crespi{at}sfu.ca

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Cadherins in maternal-foetal interactions: red queen with a green beard?.
K. Summers and B. Crespi (2005)
Proc R Soc B 272, 643-649
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)