Kin and multilevel selection in social evolution: a never-ending controversy?
Kin and multilevel selection in social evolution: a never-ending controversy?
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DOI：
10.12688/f1000research.8018.1
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发表时间：
2016-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Meunier, Joel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kramer, Jos;Meunier, Joel
亲缘选择和多层次选择是进化生物学中解释社会行为进化的两个主要框架。然而，近半个世纪以来，这两种理论之间的关系一直饱受争议，关于它们在解释社会进化方面的相关性和有用性的争论似乎每隔一段时间就会重新燃起。本文首先简要介绍了亲缘选择理论和多层次选择理论，并阐明了围绕它们的争议的根源。然后，我们回顾了当前争论的两个主要方面：两种理论的假定形式等效性以及群体选择是否会导致群体适应的问题。最后，我们认为这两种理论可以为社会进化的研究提供互补的方法：亲缘选择方法通常关注于最佳表型的识别，从而关注选择过程的最终结果，而多层次选择方法则关注于正在进行的选择过程本身。因此，这两种理论提供了不同的视角，它们可能会有效地结合起来，促进我们对群体结构种群进化的理解。
Kin selection and multilevel selection are two major frameworks in evolutionary biology that aim at explaining the evolution of social behaviors. However, the relationship between these two theories has been plagued by controversy for almost half a century and debates about their relevance and usefulness in explaining social evolution seem to rekindle at regular intervals. Here, we first provide a concise introduction into the kin selection and multilevel selection theories and shed light onto the roots of the controversy surrounding them. We then review two major aspects of the current debate: the presumed formal equivalency of the two theories and the question whether group selection can lead to group adaptation. We conclude by arguing that the two theories can offer complementary approaches to the study of social evolution: kin selection approaches usually focus on the identification of optimal phenotypes and thus on the endresult of a selection process, whereas multilevel selection approaches focus on the ongoing selection process itself. The two theories thus provide different perspectives that might be fruitfully combined to promote our understanding of the evolution in group-structured populations.