Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Kin selection
Kin selection is a form of altruism, in which individuals in the group are related to some degree. One great example of kin selection is social insects, in which worker bees are sterile and can not reproduce and they actually help the queen bee with her offspring. This seems to but unselfish in every way imaginable, but there is still a little room for the selfish gene to show its face. In some cases of sterile castes the workers can sneak an egg or two of their own in or they could just be waiting for the queen to die so they can take her place.
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I agree and in kin selection the related individuals do get to cooperate and know they are helping some of their genes survive too!
ReplyDeleteGood main points. I liked how you explained social insects as support for kin selection. But you could have also gone into further detail by describing relatedness determination being different than mammals. Because that Haploid-diploid.
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