Abstract
Our understanding of how cooperation can arise in a population of selfish individuals has been greatly advanced by theory. More than one approach has been used to explore the effect of population structure. Inclusive fitness theory uses genetic relatedness r to express the role of population structure. Evolutionary graph theory models the evolution of cooperation on network structures and focuses on the number of interacting partners k as a quantity of interest. Here we use empirical data from a hierarchically structured animal contact network to examine the interplay between independent, measurable proxies for these key parameters. We find strong inverse correlations between estimates of r and k over three levels of social organization, suggesting that genetic relatedness and social contact structure capture similar structural information in a real population.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 135-142 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | American Naturalist |
Volume | 177 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 30 Nov 2010 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2011 |