Re: Three roles of "the population".

• Previous message: michael.goodrich_at_gmail.com: "Re: Temperature Clues"
• In reply to: Perplexed in Peoria: "Three roles of "the population"."
• Next in thread: Perplexed in Peoria: "Re: Three roles of "the population"."
• Reply: Perplexed in Peoria: "Re: Three roles of "the population"."
• Reply: Guy Hoelzer: "Re: Three roles of "the population"."
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:43:51 -0500 (EST)

"Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmenegay@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:<cvm8f1$1fbv$1@darwin.ediacara.org>...
> It occurs to me that some of the confusion regarding kin selection and
> group selection occurs because of a failure to distinguish the three
> different roles that "the population" plays in our models. There
> are really three different "kinds" of populations.
>
> One is the "breeding population". It is natural to assume that
> mates are selected randomly from this population. By the same
> token, in a kin selection argument, it is natural to assume that
> those genes in a recipient that are not IBD (1-r) have been randomly
> selected according to the overall gene frequency in the breeding
> population.
>
> A second is the "competitive population". Density dependent selection
> acts to keep the size of this population constant. Group selection
> arguments sometimes make the implicit assumption that the competitive
> population is larger than the breeding population. Thus, the "group",
> which constitutes a breeding population, is permitted to increase in
> size at the expense of other (less altruistic?) groups. In the
> kind of simulation model that I advocate on the thread entitled
> "NS as head to head competition", the competitors in a survival
> contest must be randomly selected from the "competitive population".
>
> The third is the "social population". In a model of random social
> interactions, this is the population from which the recipient for
> a donor is randomly selected. Clearly, as was recognized by Hamilton
> in 1964, forgotten by him in 1970, but remembered by him by the
> time of "Narrow Roads", the "social population" must be smaller
> than the "breeding population" if kin selection is to promote
> indiscriminate altruism within the "social population".

I'd add a fourth form, and infact this is the only one that I would
refer to as 'the population'. It is the grouping of conspecifics in
which we are interested in focussing the problem upon. It is with
respect to this population that we measure allele / phenotype
frequencies. This is the population whose evolutionary change we are
ultimately interested in.

The breeding population is usually referred to as 'deme'. I tend to
refer to the competitive population as 'arena of competition' or
equivalent. And the social population is usually referred to as a
'social group'.

• Previous message: michael.goodrich_at_gmail.com: "Re: Temperature Clues"
• In reply to: Perplexed in Peoria: "Three roles of "the population"."
• Next in thread: Perplexed in Peoria: "Re: Three roles of "the population"."
• Reply: Perplexed in Peoria: "Re: Three roles of "the population"."
• Reply: Guy Hoelzer: "Re: Three roles of "the population"."
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]