Re: Underestimating 'r'

Tim Tyler (tim@xxxxxxxxxxx) writes:
> You are assuming no higher level selection exists. The possibility
> of such selection was what my post was directed at. If the cheetah
> species is in competition with the lion species and the tiger species,
> then it may benefit individuals of the cheetah species to give resources
> to other "unrelated" cheetahs - in preference to leaving them for lions
> and tigers - producing a "breathren of cheetahs" effect.

The place to look for such effects, IMO, is in characteristics
that can't evolve quickly for one reason or another.
Number of limbs is an example of something that apparently
can't evolve quickly, but with no obvious connection to
altruism. A more relevant example might be plants which
put poison into the soil that kills off other plants, but
to which they are immune themselves (pine trees, for example,
which make the soil acidic I think, thus killing off grass and
weeds under them.) There could be some inherent connection
to their metabolism that makes it almost impossible to
suddenly stop giving off poison with a simple mutation
and still survive.

The mechanism stopping the characteristic from mutating
suddenly could be something to do with the genes themselves --
attached to a chromosome that doesn't tend to get
damaged??? -- or it could be something more
phenotypical: that the characteristic serves more than
one purpose so they'll probably just die if it
mutates away. The latter seems more reasonable if
very long-term stability is required.

Once long-term stability of a characteristic is established
somehow, then it becomes very reasonable to consider
largish numbers of similar species competing with each
other, with ones who have long-term intra-species
altruism having an advantage over species that don't.
The surviving species can of course split into more
than one species, so that eventually all the remaining
species in that niche might have the long-term
intra-species altruism.

There would be complexities
about how the altruism avoids wasting its benefits on
members of similar species. Maybe each species would
have its own poison to which only its own members were
immune, or something.

Giving off poison may not sound very altruistic
but it may be altruistic towards individuals who
benefit from having certain others killed off --
like when someone does their neighbour a favour
by pulling out some weeds.

IMO the inability to do parthenogenesis is an
example of such a characteristic (or can be explained
by a similar, if not identical, argument).
--
Cathy Woodgold
http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html
We are all Iraqis now.

.

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