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| Red paper wasp, Polistes canadensis Polistes colonies offer windows into the evolution of co-operation. Image: P Kennedy |
One of the things Creationists pretend to find hard to understand is how 'selfish' genes, or an evolutionary process that means individuals with certain beneficial mutations have an advantage over those who don't, can produce altruism. It probably tells us something about Creationists, that they don't understand how something which isn't purely selfish can improve the chances of survival of the species over all, or why this should be beneficial.
It may also help explain the recent finding that fundamentalist evangelical Christians tend to have a low regard for the health and welfare of others, as we are seeing by their selfish behaviour during the coronavirus pandemic.
The reason, of course, is that any action which improves the chances of copies of that gene (for 'gene' read also 'alliance of genes') being passed down to the nexct generation will tend to increase the frequency of those genes in the future gene pool of that species. If those genes tend to encourage altruism then altruism will tend to increase as a behavioural characteristic of that species.
This means any action which improves the chances of a relative with those genes having more offspring surviving to reproduce will also tend to increase the frequency of those genes in future generations so behaviour which ensure a relative or the offspring of a relative survives to reproduce will tend to increase in the species' behavioural repertoire.
By helping more distant relatives who are more in need—those living next door with fewer carers—workers can pass on more copies of their genes overall.
We believe that similar principles of diminishing returns might explain seemingly paradoxical acts of altruism in many other social animals.
The fact that these paper wasps in Central and South America help at other colonies is really bizarre when you consider that most wasps, ants and bees are extremely hostile to outsiders. To solve this puzzling behaviour, we combined mathematical modelling with our detailed field observations... our results show that worker wasps can become redundant at home. A wasp on a colony with few larvae but lots of other workers becomes almost useless: the best thing to do is to babysit the larvae of other relatives.
By helping more distant relatives who are more in need—those living next door with fewer carers—workers can pass on more copies of their genes overall. We believe that similar principles of diminishing returns might explain seemingly paradoxical acts of altruism in many other social animals.
Now a team of scientists from the University of Bristol, UK, believe they have identified an example of this evolved altruism in a normally agressive eusocial wasp - the red paper wasp, Polistes canadensis, of Central and South America. The Bristol University press release explains:
We believe that similar principles of diminishing returns might explain seemingly paradoxical acts of altruism in many other social animals.
The fact that these paper wasps in Central and South America help at other colonies is really bizarre when you consider that most wasps, ants and bees are extremely hostile to outsiders. To solve this puzzling behaviour, we combined mathematical modelling with our detailed field observations... our results show that worker wasps can become redundant at home. A wasp on a colony with few larvae but lots of other workers becomes almost useless: the best thing to do is to babysit the larvae of other relatives.
Dr Patrick Kennedy, lead author.
Marie Curie research fellow
School of Biological Sciences
University of Bristol
Marie Curie research fellow
School of Biological Sciences
University of Bristol
By helping more distant relatives who are more in need—those living next door with fewer carers—workers can pass on more copies of their genes overall. We believe that similar principles of diminishing returns might explain seemingly paradoxical acts of altruism in many other social animals.
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| Young workers make defensive postures on the nest Image: P Kennedy |
Wasps provide crucial support to their extended families by babysitting at neighbouring nests, according to new research by a team of biologists from the universities of Bristol, Exeter and UCL published today [15 February] in Nature Ecology and Evolution.Sadly, the paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution is behind an expensive paywall. In their abstract, the authors state:
The findings suggest that animals should often seek to help more distant relatives if their closest kin are less in need.
Dr Patrick Kennedy, lead author and Marie Curie research fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol, said: “These wasps can act like rich family members lending a hand to their second cousins. If there’s not much more you can do to help your immediate family, you can turn your attention to the extended family.”
By closely observing twenty thousand baby wasps and their carers on colonies around the Panama Canal, the research team could determine the usefulness of workers on colonies of different sizes. They showed that workers become less useful as the number of colony members rises, due to a surplus of help.
Andy Radford, Professor of Behavioural Ecology, also from Bristol and co-author, explained: “By helping more distant relatives who are more in need—those living next door with fewer carers—workers can pass on more copies of their genes overall. We believe that similar principles of diminishing returns might explain seemingly paradoxical acts of altruism in many other social animals.”
Dr Kennedy added: “The fact that these paper wasps in Central and South America help at other colonies is really bizarre when you consider that most wasps, ants and bees are extremely hostile to outsiders. To solve this puzzling behaviour, we combined mathematical modelling with our detailed field observations.”
Dr Kennedy continued: “We ended up being stung a lot. But it was worth it, because our results show that worker wasps can become redundant at home. A wasp on a colony with few larvae but lots of other workers becomes almost useless: the best thing to do is to babysit the larvae of other relatives.”
Since Darwin, biologists have been trying to understand how ‘altruism’ evolves in animals. At first glance, acts of selflessness to help other individuals do not seem to allow individuals to pass on their genes.
Altruism between close relatives can be easily explained. However, paradoxes arise when organisms divert altruism towards more distantly related recipients. In some social insects, workers drift extensively between colonies and help raise less related foreign brood, seemingly reducing inclusive fitness. Since being highlighted by W. D. Hamilton, three hypotheses (bet hedging, indirect reciprocity and diminishing returns to cooperation) have been proposed for this surprising behaviour. Here, using inclusive fitness theory, we show that bet hedging and indirect reciprocity could only drive cooperative drifting under improbable conditions. However, diminishing returns to cooperation create a simple context in which sharing workers is adaptive.As the usefulness of the workers in their own colony diminishes as the number of workers available to look after the young increases, there is long-term benefit to the species if these otherwise redundant workers go off to find other nearby colonies more in need of their services. In the environment in which this species lives, where several colonies of related queens occur close together, the minimal effort involved in this altruistic behaviour means any cost to the 'home' colony of this loss of a worker's effort, is more than outweighed by the benefit overall to the genes that produce this altruistic behaviour.
Alongside this evolution of altruistic behaviour, there must also have been evolution of suppression of any aggressive response to a 'foreign' worker who might otherwise be attacked as a potential threat.
Incidentally, can anyone see any hint in this paper that the TOE is about to be overthrown and replaced by magical intelligent [sic] design, like Creationist frauds keep telling their credulous dupes? Me neither!
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