NPs evolve to play a role in chemical warfare

Microbial interactions—did NPs evolve to play a role in chemical warfare  

The capacity to make NPs evolved in simple microbes (see Chapter 3). However, many single-celled organisms can survive, alone, without any interaction with any other living organism, so why did chemical interactions between organisms evolve This is a question that, like most evolutionary questions, carmotbe answered with certainty but it is a question that deserves some speculative thought. 

These speculations provide some possible reasons why the low frequency of occurrence of antibiotics in microbes cannot be used as a conclusive argument that microbes must have evolved NTs to serve a role other than competing with each other. Could it be that the term chemical arms race often used when discussing NP evolution is really less appropriate than economic arms race  

How might a multicellular organism gain fitness by producing an NP  

Substance Species Major valued NPs Receptor binding NP (action ofNP) Endogenous ligand 

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