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Social evolution under demographic stochasticity
1Institute for Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Plos Computational Biology
|February 5, 2019
Summary
Demographic stochasticity
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary Biology
- Theoretical Ecology
- Behavioral Ecology
Background:
- The evolution of social behaviors like altruism and spite is complex.
- Demographic stochasticity, random fluctuations in population dynamics, is a potential factor influencing social evolution.
Purpose of the Study:
- To provide a general theoretical analysis of demographic stochasticity's role in social evolution.
- To investigate how demographic stochasticity affects the evolution of altruism and spite.
Main Methods:
- Theoretical modeling of social evolution.
- Analysis of how social actions impact recipient life cycles (birth and death rates).
Main Results:
- When social actions affect recipient death rates, demographic stochasticity favors altruism and disfavors spite.
- When social actions affect recipient birth rates, the effect of stochasticity depends on population turnover and size.
- The ratio of population turnover to population size is critical for determining selection direction.
Conclusions:
- Demographic stochasticity plays a nuanced role in social evolution, contingent on the specific life-cycle impacts of social actions.
- Understanding population dynamics is key to predicting the evolution of social traits.
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