Projects per year
Abstract
Hamilton's theory of inclusive fitness revolutionized our understanding of the evolution of social interactions. Surprisingly, an incorporation of Hamilton's perspective into the quantitative genetic theory of phenotypic evolution has been slow, despite the popularity of quantitative genetics in evolutionary studies. Here, we discuss several versions of Hamilton's rule for social evolution from a quantitative genetic perspective, emphasizing its utility in empirical applications. Although evolutionary quantitative genetics offers methods to measure each of the critical parameters of Hamilton's rule, empirical work has lagged behind theory. In particular, we lack studies of selection on altruistic traits in the wild. Fitness costs and benefits of altruism can be estimated using a simple extension of phenotypic selection analysis that incorporates the traits of social interactants. We also discuss the importance of considering the genetic influence of the social environment, or indirect genetic effects (IGEs), in the context of Hamilton's rule. Research in social evolution has generated an extensive body of empirical work focusing-with good reason-almost solely on relatedness. We argue that quantifying the roles of social and non-social components of selection and IGEs, in addition to relatedness, is now timely and should provide unique additional insights into social evolution.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 20130358 |
Journal | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Volume | 369 |
Issue number | 1642 |
Early online date | 31 Mar 2014 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - May 2014 |
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Quantitative genetic versions of Hamilton's rule with empirical applications'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 2 Finished
-
Evolution of Pleiotropy on Warped Developmental Trajectories
Wolf, J. (PI) & Ward, A. (CoI)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
13/01/14 → 12/01/17
Project: Research council
-
Genetic Constraint in Social Evolution
Wolf, J. (PI)
Natural Environment Research Council
1/01/11 → 31/12/13
Project: Research council