Demographic noise can reverse the direction of deterministic selection.

ABSTRACT: Deterministic evolutionary theory robustly predicts that populations displaying altruistic behaviors will be driven to extinction by mutant cheats that absorb common benefits but do not themselves contribute. Here we show that when demographic stochasticity is accounted for, selection can in fact act in the reverse direction to that predicted deterministically, instead favoring cooperative behaviors that appreciably increase the carrying capacity of the population. Populations that exist in larger numbers experience a selective advantage by being more stochastically robust to invasions than smaller populations, and this advantage can persist even in the presence of reproductive costs. We investigate this general effect in the specific context of public goods production and find conditions

SUBMITTER: Constable GW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4987790 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature