FIGURE 3.

The Black Queen Hypothesis predicts that if there is a community where different species produce an expensive and diffusible public good (PG), the system will evolve toward a scenario where only a few of their members will continue with the production of the PG, only if the benefit of losing the production of the function outweighs the cost of losing it. In such community producers of the PG become helpers (H) and the rest become beneficiaries (B). LOF_B, benefit of losing the function producing the PG; LOF_C, cost of losing the function producing the PG.