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Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism
Theories on the evolutionary origins of altruistic behavior have a long history and have become a canonical part of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that allow altruism to appear and persist are still incompletely understood. It is well known, however, that the spatial structure...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9595567/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36282807 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010612 |
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author | Hermsen, Rutger |
author_facet | Hermsen, Rutger |
author_sort | Hermsen, Rutger |
collection | PubMed |
description | Theories on the evolutionary origins of altruistic behavior have a long history and have become a canonical part of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that allow altruism to appear and persist are still incompletely understood. It is well known, however, that the spatial structure of populations is an important determinant. In both theoretical and experimental studies, much attention has been devoted to populations that are subdivided into discrete groups. Such studies typically imposed the structure and dynamics of the groups by hand. Here, we instead present a simple individual-based model in which altruistic organisms spontaneously self-organize into spatially separated colonies that themselves reproduce by binary fission and hence behave as Darwinian entities in their own right. Using software to automatically track the rise and fall of colonies, we are able to apply formal theory on multilevel selection and thus quantify the within- and among-group dynamics. This reveals that individual colonies inevitably succumb to defectors in a within-colony “tragedy of the commons”. Even so, altruism persists in the population because more altruistic colonies reproduce more frequently and drive less altruistic ones to extinction. Evidently, the colonies promote the selection of altruism but in turn depend on altruism for their existence; the selection of altruism hence involves a kind of evolutionary bootstrapping. The emergence of the colonies also depends crucially on the length scales of motility, altruism, and competition. This reconfirms the general relevance of these scales for social evolution, but also stresses that their impact can only be understood fully in the light of the emergent eco-evolutionary spatial patterns. The results also suggest that emergent spatial population patterns can function as a starting point for transitions of individuality. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9595567 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95955672022-10-26 Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism Hermsen, Rutger PLoS Comput Biol Research Article Theories on the evolutionary origins of altruistic behavior have a long history and have become a canonical part of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that allow altruism to appear and persist are still incompletely understood. It is well known, however, that the spatial structure of populations is an important determinant. In both theoretical and experimental studies, much attention has been devoted to populations that are subdivided into discrete groups. Such studies typically imposed the structure and dynamics of the groups by hand. Here, we instead present a simple individual-based model in which altruistic organisms spontaneously self-organize into spatially separated colonies that themselves reproduce by binary fission and hence behave as Darwinian entities in their own right. Using software to automatically track the rise and fall of colonies, we are able to apply formal theory on multilevel selection and thus quantify the within- and among-group dynamics. This reveals that individual colonies inevitably succumb to defectors in a within-colony “tragedy of the commons”. Even so, altruism persists in the population because more altruistic colonies reproduce more frequently and drive less altruistic ones to extinction. Evidently, the colonies promote the selection of altruism but in turn depend on altruism for their existence; the selection of altruism hence involves a kind of evolutionary bootstrapping. The emergence of the colonies also depends crucially on the length scales of motility, altruism, and competition. This reconfirms the general relevance of these scales for social evolution, but also stresses that their impact can only be understood fully in the light of the emergent eco-evolutionary spatial patterns. The results also suggest that emergent spatial population patterns can function as a starting point for transitions of individuality. Public Library of Science 2022-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9595567/ /pubmed/36282807 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010612 Text en © 2022 Rutger Hermsen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Hermsen, Rutger Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism |
title | Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism |
title_full | Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism |
title_fullStr | Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism |
title_full_unstemmed | Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism |
title_short | Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism |
title_sort | emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9595567/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36282807 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010612 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT hermsenrutger emergentmultilevelselectioninasimplespatialmodeloftheevolutionofaltruism |