scholarly journals How life history and demography promote or inhibit the evolution of helping behaviours

2010 ◽  
Vol 365 (1553) ◽  
pp. 2599-2617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Lehmann ◽  
François Rousset
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Local Competition ◽  
Helping Behaviours ◽  
Theoretical Results ◽  
Social Trait ◽  
Social Behaviours

In natural populations, dispersal tends to be limited so that individuals are in local competition with their neighbours. As a consequence, most behaviours tend to have a social component, e.g. they can be selfish, spiteful, cooperative or altruistic as usually considered in social evolutionary theory. How social behaviours translate into fitness costs and benefits depends considerably on life-history features, as well as on local demographic and ecological conditions. Over the last four decades, evolutionists have been able to explore many of the consequences of these factors for the evolution of social behaviours. In this paper, we first recall the main theoretical concepts required to understand social evolution. We then discuss how life history, demography and ecology promote or inhibit the evolution of helping behaviours, but the arguments developed for helping can be extended to essentially any social trait. The analysis suggests that, on a theoretical level, it is possible to contrast three critical benefit-to-cost ratios beyond which costly helping is selected for (three quantitative rules for the evolution of altruism). But comparison between theoretical results and empirical data has always been difficult in the literature, partly because of the perennial question of the scale at which relatedness should be measured under localized dispersal. We then provide three answers to this question.

scholarly journals How social behaviour and life-history traits change with age and in the year prior to death in female yellow-bellied marmots

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1823) ◽  
pp. 20190745
Author(s):  
Svenja B. Kroeger ◽  
Daniel T. Blumstein ◽  
Julien G. A. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Social Behaviours

Studies in natural populations are essential to understand the evolutionary ecology of senescence and terminal allocation. While there are an increasing number of studies investigating late-life variation in different life-history traits of wild populations, little is known about these patterns in social behaviour. We used long-term individual based data on yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to quantify how affiliative social behaviours and different life-history traits vary with age and in the last year of life, and how patterns compare between the two. We found that some social behaviours and all life-history traits varied with age, whereas terminal last year of life effects were only observed in life-history traits. Our results imply that affiliative social behaviours do not act as a mechanism to adjust allocation among traits when close to death, and highlight the importance of adopting an integrative approach, studying late-life variation and senescence across multiple different traits, to allow the identification of potential trade-offs.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ageing and sociality: why, when and how does sociality change ageing patterns?’

scholarly journals Kinship dynamics: patterns and consequences of changes in local relatedness

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1957) ◽  
pp. 20211129
Author(s):  
Darren P. Croft ◽  
Michael N. Weiss ◽  
Mia L. K. Nielsen ◽  
Charli Grimes ◽  
Michael A. Cant ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Life History Evolution ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Over Time

Mounting evidence suggests that patterns of local relatedness can change over time in predictable ways, a process termed kinship dynamics. Kinship dynamics may occur at the level of the population or social group, where the mean relatedness across all members of the population or group changes over time, or at the level of the individual, where an individual's relatedness to its local group changes with age. Kinship dynamics are likely to have fundamental consequences for the evolution of social behaviour and life history because they alter the inclusive fitness payoffs to actions taken at different points in time. For instance, growing evidence suggests that individual kinship dynamics have shaped the evolution of menopause and age-specific patterns of helping and harming. To date, however, the consequences of kinship dynamics for social evolution have not been widely explored. Here we review the patterns of kinship dynamics that can occur in natural populations and highlight how taking a kinship dynamics approach has yielded new insights into behaviour and life-history evolution. We discuss areas where analysing kinship dynamics could provide new insight into social evolution, and we outline some of the challenges in predicting and quantifying kinship dynamics in natural populations.

scholarly journals Fitness costs of herbicide resistance across natural populations of the common morning glory,Ipomoea purpurea

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan L. van Etten ◽  
Adam Kuester ◽  
Shu-Mei Chang ◽  
Regina S Baucom
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Herbicide Resistance ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Morning Glory ◽  
Visual Exploration ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Ipomoea Purpurea ◽  
Life Cycle Stages ◽  
Trade Offs

AbstractAlthough fitness costs associated with plant defensive traits are widely expected, they are not universally detected, calling into question their generality. Here we examine the potential for life history trade-offs associated with herbicide resistance by examining seed germination, root growth, and above-ground growth across 43 naturally occurring populations ofIpomoea purpureathat vary in their resistance to RoundUp®, the most commonly used herbicide worldwide. We find evidence for life history trade-offs associated with all three traits; highly resistant populations had lower germination rates, shorter roots and smaller above-ground size. A visual exploration of the data indicated that the type of trade-off may differ among populations. Our results demonstrate that costs of adaptation may be present at stages other than simply the production of progeny in this agricultural weed. Additionally, the cumulative effect of costs at multiple life cycle stages can result in severe consequences to fitness when adapting to novel environments.

scholarly journals Hamilton's rule and the causes of social evolution

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1642) ◽  
pp. 20130362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew F. G. Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Hamilton’S Rule ◽  
Direct Fitness ◽  
Hamilton's Rule

Hamilton's rule is a central theorem of inclusive fitness (kin selection) theory and predicts that social behaviour evolves under specific combinations of relatedness, benefit and cost. This review provides evidence for Hamilton's rule by presenting novel syntheses of results from two kinds of study in diverse taxa, including cooperatively breeding birds and mammals and eusocial insects. These are, first, studies that empirically parametrize Hamilton's rule in natural populations and, second, comparative phylogenetic analyses of the genetic, life-history and ecological correlates of sociality. Studies parametrizing Hamilton's rule are not rare and demonstrate quantitatively that (i) altruism (net loss of direct fitness) occurs even when sociality is facultative, (ii) in most cases, altruism is under positive selection via indirect fitness benefits that exceed direct fitness costs and (iii) social behaviour commonly generates indirect benefits by enhancing the productivity or survivorship of kin. Comparative phylogenetic analyses show that cooperative breeding and eusociality are promoted by (i) high relatedness and monogamy and, potentially, by (ii) life-history factors facilitating family structure and high benefits of helping and (iii) ecological factors generating low costs of social behaviour. Overall, the focal studies strongly confirm the predictions of Hamilton's rule regarding conditions for social evolution and their causes.

scholarly journals Fitness of Herbicide-Resistant Weeds: Current Knowledge and Implications for Management

Plants ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vila-Aiub
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Herbicide Resistance ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Resistance Management ◽  
Fitness Cost ◽  
Plant Fitness ◽  
Resistance Mutations ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Wide Range

Herbicide resistance is the ultimate evidence of the extraordinary capacity of weeds to evolve under stressful conditions. Despite the extraordinary plant fitness advantage endowed by herbicide resistance mutations in agroecosystems under herbicide selection, resistance mutations are predicted to exhibit an adaptation cost (i.e., fitness cost), relative to the susceptible wild-type, in herbicide untreated conditions. Fitness costs associated with herbicide resistance mutations are not universal and their expression depends on the particular mutation, genetic background, dominance of the fitness cost, and environmental conditions. The detrimental effects of herbicide resistance mutations on plant fitness may arise as a direct impact on fitness-related traits and/or coevolution with changes in other life history traits that ultimately may lead to fitness costs under particular ecological conditions. This brings the idea that a “lower adaptive value” of herbicide resistance mutations represents an opportunity for the design of resistance management practices that could minimize the evolution of herbicide resistance. It is evident that the challenge for weed management practices aiming to control, minimize, or even reverse the frequency of resistance mutations in the agricultural landscape is to “create” those agroecological conditions that could expose, exploit, and exacerbate those life history and/or fitness traits affecting the evolution of herbicide resistance mutations. Ideally, resistance management should implement a wide range of cultural practices leading to environmentally mediated fitness costs associated with herbicide resistance mutations.

scholarly journals Fitness costs of parasites explain multiple life history tradeoffs in a wild mammal

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory F Albery ◽  
Alison Morris ◽  
Sean Morris ◽  
Fiona Kenyon ◽  
Daniel H Nussey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Wild Mammal ◽  
Life History Tradeoffs

Life History Changes in Eastern Mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) Induced by Thermal Elevation

1991 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary K. Meffe
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Life History ◽  
Nuclear Reactor ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Life History Evolution ◽  
Gambusia Holbrooki ◽  
Genetic Changes ◽  
Thermal Death ◽  
Reproductive Biomass ◽  
Eastern Mosquitofish

Much light can be shed on life history evolution through study of responses of organisms to chronic exposure to a novel or perturbed environment. To determine the influence of 28 yr of temporally unpredictable thermal elevation on their life history patterns, I sampled eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) from a thermally elevated (outflow from a nuclear reactor) and an ambient (farm pond) habitat in South Carolina every month for 2 yr. Fish from the artificially heated environment reproduced all year, had higher reproductive investments (higher clutch sizes and reproductive biomass), and smaller offspring than did fish from the ambient environment, which ceased reproduction from October through March, typical for natural populations of the region. Likely environmental factors responsible for these differences include unpredictable food resources, higher mortality from thermal death, and higher predation by fishes and birds in the heated waters. The extent to which these life history alterations are the result of adaptive genetic changes versus phenotypically plastic responses remains to be tested.

scholarly journals War and peace: social interactions in infections

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1642) ◽  
pp. 20130365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen C. Leggett ◽  
Sam P. Brown ◽  
Sarah E. Reece
Keyword(s):  
Species Interactions ◽  
Disease Ecology ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Microbial Pathogens ◽  
Emergent Properties ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
Inclusive Fitness Theory ◽  
Social Behaviours

One of the most striking facts about parasites and microbial pathogens that has emerged in the fields of social evolution and disease ecology in the past few decades is that these simple organisms have complex social lives, indulging in a variety of cooperative, communicative and coordinated behaviours. These organisms have provided elegant experimental tests of the importance of relatedness, kin discrimination, cooperation and competition, in driving the evolution of social strategies. Here, we briefly review the social behaviours of parasites and microbial pathogens, including their contributions to virulence, and outline how inclusive fitness theory has helped to explain their evolution. We then take a mechanistically inspired ‘bottom-up’ approach, discussing how key aspects of the ways in which parasites and pathogens exploit hosts, namely public goods, mobile elements, phenotypic plasticity, spatial structure and multi-species interactions, contribute to the emergent properties of virulence and transmission. We argue that unravelling the complexities of within-host ecology is interesting in its own right, and also needs to be better incorporated into theoretical evolution studies if social behaviours are to be understood and used to control the spread and severity of infectious diseases.

Evidence for multiple paternity in two species of Orconectes crayfish

2014 ◽  
Vol 92 (11) ◽  
pp. 985-988 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.F. Kahrl ◽  
R.H. Laushman ◽  
A.J. Roles
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Life History ◽  
Multiple Mating ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Multiple Paternity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Freshwater Crayfish ◽  
Decapod Crustaceans ◽  
Freshwater Habitats ◽  
Crayfish Species

Multiple mating is expected to be common in organisms that produce large clutches as a mechanism by which sexual reproduction can enrich genetic variation. For freshwater crayfish, observation of multiple mating suggests the potential for high rates of multiple paternity, but genetic confirmation is largely lacking from natural populations. We studied paternity within wild-caught broods of two crayfish species in the genus Orconectes (Sanborn’s crayfish (Orconectes sanbornii (Faxon, 1884)) and the Allegheny crayfish (Orconectes obscurus (Hagen, 1870))). Although females have been observed mating with multiple males, this is the first genetic confirmation of multiple paternity in broods of these two species. Berried females were collected in the field and maintained in aquaria until their eggs hatched. We amplified and genotyped extracted DNA from maternal and hatchling tissue for several microsatellite loci. For both species, paternity reconstruction (GERUD 2.0) yielded 2–3 sires per brood and no single paternity clutches. We discuss these results from natural populations in light of the body of work on reproductive ecology of decapod crustaceans and in the context of changes in life history following the transition from marine to freshwater habitats.

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