Evolution in a genetically heritable social environment

摘要

Nearly 40 years ago W. D. Hamilton (1) published his classic paper on the genetic evolution of social behavior. His mathematical theory of kin selection and the related concept of inclusive fitness played a major role in redirecting the evolutionary study of social behavior and accounting for apparently altruistic phenotypes observed in nature. Since that time, and especially after publication of E. O. Wilson's book on sociobiology (2), the evolution of social behavior in animals has been studied as the balance between the fitness costs of behavior performed relative to the fitness benefits accrued by kin. This balance is summarized in Hamilton's rule, altruism will increase in a population when the genetic correlation among interacting individuals (r) exceeds the ratio of costs to benefits (|c|/b). The development of sociobiology has been seen as a triumph for the application of the principles of Darwinian evolution to the understanding of social behavior.