Only full-sibling families evolved eusociality
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Only full-sibling families evolved eusociality. / Boomsma, Jacobus J; Beekman, Madeleine; Cornwallis, Charlie K; Griffin, Ashleigh S; Holman, Luke; Hughes, William O H; Keller, Laurent; Oldroyd, Benjamin P; Ratnieks, Francis L W.
In: Nature, Vol. 471, No. 7339, 2011, p. E4-5; author reply E9-10.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Only full-sibling families evolved eusociality
AU - Boomsma, Jacobus J
AU - Beekman, Madeleine
AU - Cornwallis, Charlie K
AU - Griffin, Ashleigh S
AU - Holman, Luke
AU - Hughes, William O H
AU - Keller, Laurent
AU - Oldroyd, Benjamin P
AU - Ratnieks, Francis L W
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Arising from M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita & E. O. Wilson 466, 1057-1062 (2010); Nowak et al. reply. The paper by Nowak et al. has the evolution of eusociality as its title, but it is mostly about something else. It argues against inclusive fitness theory and offers an alternative modelling approach that is claimed to be more fundamental and general, but which, we believe, has no practical biological meaning for the evolution of eusociality. Nowak et al. overlook the robust empirical observation that eusociality has only arisen in clades where mothers are associated with their full-sibling offspring; that is, in families where the average relatedness of offspring to siblings is as high as to their own offspring, independent of population structure or ploidy. We believe that this omission makes the paper largely irrelevant for understanding the evolution of eusociality.
AB - Arising from M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita & E. O. Wilson 466, 1057-1062 (2010); Nowak et al. reply. The paper by Nowak et al. has the evolution of eusociality as its title, but it is mostly about something else. It argues against inclusive fitness theory and offers an alternative modelling approach that is claimed to be more fundamental and general, but which, we believe, has no practical biological meaning for the evolution of eusociality. Nowak et al. overlook the robust empirical observation that eusociality has only arisen in clades where mothers are associated with their full-sibling offspring; that is, in families where the average relatedness of offspring to siblings is as high as to their own offspring, independent of population structure or ploidy. We believe that this omission makes the paper largely irrelevant for understanding the evolution of eusociality.
KW - Altruism
KW - Animals
KW - Biological Evolution
KW - Cooperative Behavior
KW - Female
KW - Game Theory
KW - Genetic Fitness
KW - Genetics, Population
KW - Male
KW - Models, Biological
KW - Reproducibility of Results
KW - Reproduction
KW - Selection, Genetic
KW - Sex Ratio
KW - Siblings
U2 - 10.1038/nature09832
DO - 10.1038/nature09832
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 21430722
VL - 471
SP - E4-5; author reply E9-10
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
SN - 0028-0836
IS - 7339
ER -
ID: 40349571