Kinship, greenbeards, and runaway social selection in the evolution of social insect cooperation.

ABSTRACT: Social Hymenoptera have played a leading role in development and testing of kin selection theory. Inclusive fitness models, following from Hamilton's rule, successfully predict major life history characteristics, such as biased sex investment ratios and conflict over parentage of male offspring. However, kin selection models poorly predict patterns of caste-biasing nepotism and reproductive skew within groups unless kin recognition constraints or group-level selection is also invoked. These successes and failures mirror the underlying kin recognition mechanisms. With reliable environmental cues, such as the sex of offspring or the origin of male eggs, predictions are supported. When only genetic recognition cues are potentially available, predictions are not supported. Mathematical simulat

SUBMITTER: Nonacs P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3131811 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature