Wasp Reproduction and Kin Selection: Reproductive Competition and Dominance Hierarchies among Polistes annularis Foundresses

1981 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan E. Strassmann
Keyword(s):  
Kin Selection ◽  
Reproductive Competition ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Polistes Annularis

The Point of Politics

1994 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Betzig
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Reproductive Competition ◽  
Western History ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Men And Women

AbstractWhy do men and women compete? And what makes them compete more or less? An answer to the first question follows directly from Darwin. If Homo sapiens, like other species, is a product of natural selection, then we should have evolved to compete in order to reproduce. An answer to the second question follows from more recent versions of Darwinism. People, like other organisms, are likely to compete socially - to form dominance hierarchies - to the extent that it is costly for subordinates to flee ecologically. This paper first reviews evidence that winners at political competition have consistently won at reproductive competition. Next, it documents the slow shift toward declining political competition - toward democracy, and toward declining reproductive competition - toward monogamy, in the course of Western history. Last, it offers a model of what might account for that change.

scholarly journals Nepotistic cooperation in non-human primate groups

2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1533) ◽  
pp. 3243-3254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan B. Silk
Keyword(s):  
Macaca Mulatta ◽  
Pan Troglodytes ◽  
Kin Selection ◽  
Common Ancestry ◽  
Howler Monkeys ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Cooperatively Breeding ◽  
Mouse Lemurs ◽  
The Many ◽  
Human Primate

Darwin was struck by the many similarities between humans and other primates and believed that these similarities were the product of common ancestry. He would be even more impressed by the similarities if he had known what we have learned about primates over the last 50 years. Genetic kinship has emerged as the primary organizing force in the evolution of primate social organization and the patterning of social behaviour in non-human primate groups. There are pronounced nepotistic biases across the primate order, from tiny grey mouse lemurs ( Microcebus murinus ) that forage alone at night but cluster with relatives to sleep during the day, to cooperatively breeding marmosets that rely on closely related helpers to rear their young, rhesus macaque ( Macaca mulatta ) females who acquire their mother's rank and form strict matrilineal dominance hierarchies, male howler monkeys that help their sons maintain access to groups of females and male chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) that form lasting relationships with their brothers. As more evidence of nepotism has accumulated, important questions about the evolutionary processes underlying these kin biases have been raised. Although kin selection predicts that altruism will be biased in favour of relatives, it is difficult to assess whether primates actually conform to predictions derived from Hamilton's rule: br > c . In addition, other mechanisms, including contingent reciprocity and mutualism, could contribute to the nepotistic biases observed in non-human primate groups. There are good reasons to suspect that these processes may complement the effects of kin selection and amplify the extent of nepotistic biases in behaviour.

scholarly journals Cooperative and aggressive behaviours vary between ranks in anemonefish social hierarchies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
T Rueger ◽  
SJ Heatwole ◽  
MY Wong
Keyword(s):  
Kin Selection ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Higher Rank ◽  
Aggressive Behaviours

AbstractMany animal groups consist of individuals organised in dominance hierarchies, based on age, size or fighting ability. Lower ranked individuals often do not reproduce themselves but perform cooperative behaviours to help the reproductive output of dominant individuals or the group as a whole. Theoretical models suggest that individuals of higher rank should show increased amounts of aggressive behaviours, such as aggressions towards other group members, but should decrease the amount of cooperative behaviours, such as brood care or territory maintenance. Most empirical tests of these models focus on insect or mammalian systems where kin selection plays a large role, rather than animals that live in groups of unrelated individuals. Here we use two anemonefish species to test hypotheses of variation in cooperation and aggression with respect to social rank and species, for social systems where group members are unrelated. We assessed the behaviours of each rank in 20 groups of Amphiprion percula and 12 groups of A. perideraion in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. We also performed a removal experiment to test if cooperative and aggressive behaviours are likely adaptive, i.e., if they change as an individual ascends in rank. Our results show differences between the two species, with A. percula showing more cooperative behaviours and A. perideraion showing more aggressive behaviours, despite them being closely related and sharing a very similar ecology. With respect to both cooperation and aggression we found consistent differences between ranks in both species, with higher ranks performing more aggressive as well as more cooperative behaviours. When we experimentally provided lower ranked individuals (rank 4) an opportunity to ascend in the hierarchy, they showed more aggression and more cooperation in line with our observations for rank 3 individuals. Thus, we show that rank specific behavioural patterns are likely adaptive in anemonefishes and that some model predictions do not hold in systems where kin selection benefits are absent. Rather, future fitness benefits through territory inheritance and group augmentation likely motivate cooperative and aggressive behaviours by subordinates in groups of unrelated vertebrates.

scholarly journals The evolution of menopause in cetaceans and humans: the role of demography

2010 ◽  
Vol 277 (1701) ◽  
pp. 3765-3771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rufus A. Johnstone ◽  
Michael A. Cant
Keyword(s):  
Kin Selection ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Reproductive Competition ◽  
Female Age ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Reproductive Life ◽  
Grandmother Hypothesis ◽  
Comparable Period

Human females stop reproducing long before they die. Among other mammals, only pilot and killer whales exhibit a comparable period of post-reproductive life. The grandmother hypothesis suggests that kin selection can favour post-reproductive survival when older females help their relatives to reproduce. But although there is an evidence that grandmothers can provide such assistance, it is puzzling why menopause should have evolved only among the great apes and toothed whales. We have previously suggested ( Cant & Johnstone 2008 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105 , 5332–5336 ( doi:10.1073/pnas.0711911105 )) that relatedness asymmetries owing to female-biased dispersal in ancestral humans would have favoured younger females in reproductive competition with older females, predisposing our species to the evolution of menopause. But this argument appears inapplicable to menopausal cetaceans, which exhibit philopatry of both sexes combined with extra-group mating. Here, we derive general formulae for ‘kinship dynamics’, the age-related changes in local relatedness that occur in long-lived social organisms as a consequence of dispersal and mortality. We show that the very different social structures of great apes and menopausal whales both give rise to an increase in local relatedness with female age, favouring late-life helping. Our analysis can therefore help to explain why, of all long-lived, social mammals, it is specifically among the great apes and toothed whales that menopause and post-reproductive helping have evolved.

scholarly journals Family quarrels in seeds and rapid adaptive evolution in Arabidopsis

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (19) ◽  
pp. 9463-9468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine S. Geist ◽  
Joan E. Strassmann ◽  
David C. Queller
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Evolution ◽  
Kin Selection ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Flowering Plant ◽  
Rapid Adaptation ◽  
Arms Races ◽  
Evolutionary Conflict ◽  
Alternative Hypotheses

Evolutionary conflict can drive rapid adaptive evolution, sometimes called an arms race, because each party needs to respond continually to the adaptations of the other. Evidence for such arms races can sometimes be seen in morphology, in behavior, or in the genes underlying sexual interactions of host−pathogen interactions, but is rarely predicted a priori. Kin selection theory predicts that conflicts of interest should usually be reduced but not eliminated among genetic relatives, but there is little evidence as to whether conflict within families can drive rapid adaptation. Here we test multiple predictions about how conflict over the amount of resources an offspring receives from its parent would drive rapid molecular evolution in seed tissues of the flowering plant Arabidopsis. As predicted, there is more adaptive evolution in genes expressed in Arabidopsis seeds than in other specialized organs, more in endosperms and maternal tissues than in embryos, and more in the specific subtissues involved in nutrient transfer. In the absence of credible alternative hypotheses, these results suggest that kin selection and conflict are important in plants, that the conflict includes not just the mother and offspring but also the triploid endosperm, and that, despite the conflict-reducing role of kinship, family members can engage in slow but steady tortoise-like arms races.

Kin selection in density regulated populations

1992 ◽  
Vol 157 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Kin Selection
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