Population viscosity can promote the evolution of altruistic sterile helpers and eusociality.

ABSTRACT: Because it increases relatedness between interacting individuals, population viscosity has been proposed to favour the evolution of altruistic helping. However, because it increases local competition between relatives, population viscosity may also act as a brake for the evolution of helping behaviours. In simple models, the kin selected fecundity benefits of helping are exactly cancelled out by the cost of increased competition between relatives when helping occurs after dispersal. This result has lead to the widespread view, especially among people working with social organisms, that special conditions are required for the evolution of altruism. Here, we re-examine this result by constructing a simple population genetic model where we analyse whether the evolution of a sterile worker cas

SUBMITTER: Lehmann L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2593924 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature