Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Universitat de València, C/ Catedrático Agustín Escardino 9, 46980 Paterna, València, Spain
| Received 16 Feb 2022 |
Accepted 21 May 2022 |
Published 03 Oct 2022 |
Despite extensive evidence of virus-virus interactions, not much is known about their biological significance. Importantly, virus-virus interactions could have evolved as a form of cooperation or simply be a by-product of other processes. Here, we review and discuss different types of virus-virus interactions from the point of view of social evolution, which provides a well-established framework for interpreting the fitness costs and benefits of such traits. We also classify interactions according to their mechanisms of action and speculate on their evolutionary implications. As in any other biological system, the evolutionary stability of viral cooperation critically requires cheaters to be excluded from cooperative interactions. We discuss how cheater viruses exploit cooperative traits and how viral populations are able to counteract this maladaptive process.
