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Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality

Nature 471, E1–E4 (24 March 2011) | Download Citation

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Abstract

Arising from M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita & E. O. Wilson Nature 466, 1057–1062 (2010)10.1038/nature09205; Nowak et al. reply

Nowak et al.1 argue that inclusive fitness theory has been of little value in explaining the natural world, and that it has led to negligible progress in explaining the evolution of eusociality. However, we believe that their arguments are based upon a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory and a misrepresentation of the empirical literature. We will focus our comments on three general issues.

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Affiliations

  1. *Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA

    • Patrick Abbot

  2. †Laboratory of Applied Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Shizuoka University, Sizuoka 422-8529, Japan

    • Jun Abe

  3. ‡School of Life Sciences, PO Box 874501, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-4501, USA

    • John Alcock

  4. §UMR CNRS-IRD 2724, Genetics and Evolution of Infectious Diseases, IRD, 911 Avenue Agropolis, B.P. 64501, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    • Samuel Alizon
    •  & Yannis Michalakis

  5. ‖Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK

    • Joao A. C. Alpedrinha
    • , Jay M. Biernaskie
    • , Sam Brown
    • , Angus Buckling
    • , Max N. Burton-Chellew
    • , Claire El Mouden
    • , Kevin Foster
    • , Andy Gardner
    • , Alan Grafen
    • , Paul H. Harvey
    • , Natalie Jiricny
    • , Alex Kacelnik
    • , Lorenzo Santorelli
    •  & Stuart A. West

  6. ¶Department of Zoology, University of Gothenburg, SE 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

    • Malte Andersson

  7. #CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, UMR 7625, Ecologie and Evolution, 75005 Paris, France

    • Jean-Baptiste Andre
    • , Minus van Baalen
    •  & Thibaud Monnin

  8. ☆MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, St Mary’s Campus, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG, UK

    • Francois Balloux

  9. **Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, 1280 Main St West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada

    • Sigal Balshine

  10. ††IST Austria, Am Campus 1, Klosterneuburg 3400, Austria

    • Nick Barton

  11. ‡‡Evolutionary Genetics, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies, University of Groningen, PO Box 14, NL-9750 AA Haren, The Netherlands

    • Leo W. Beukeboom

  12. §§Aarhus University, Department of Biological Sciences, Ny Munkegade 1540, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

    • Trine Bilde

  13. ‖‖Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4415, USA

    • Gerald Borgia

  14. ¶¶Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0334, USA

    • Michael Breed

  15. ##Faculté des sciences, Rue Emile-Argand 11, Case postale 158, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    • Redouan Bshary
    •  & Laurent Lehmann

  16. ☆☆Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, California 92697-2525, USA

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    • Michael A. Cant
    • , Sasha R. X. Dall
    • , Allen J. Moore
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  18. Department of Ecology and Evolution, Biophore, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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  19. Department of Biology, 167 Castetter Hall, MSC03 2020, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-000, USA

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  20. Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK

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    • , William A. Foster
    •  & Rufus A. Johnstone

  21. Evolution, Ecology and Genetics, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia

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  26. Department of Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago, 1101 E. 57 Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA

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  27. Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 59717, USA

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  29. Department of Biology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085, USA

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    •  & Liselotte Sundström

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  58. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

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    •  & Jes S. Pedersen

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  66. Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C0930, Austin, Texas 78712, USA

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  72. Department of Biology, CB#3280, Coker Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280, USA

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  73. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1892, USA

    • David C. Queller
    •  & Jeff Smith

  74. Department of Biochemistry, University of Zurich, Building Y27, Office J-46, Winterthurstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Quartier Sorge Bâtiment Génopode, CH- 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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  75. Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, Faculty of Life Sciences, University College London, 4 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HE, UK

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  76. Centre for Behaviour and Evolution, Institute of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Henry Wellcome Building, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, UK

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  77. School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Queensland 4811, Australia

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  78. Station Biologique de Roscoff, CNRS-UPMC UMR 7144, 29680 Roscoff, France

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  79. Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution, University of Montpellier 2, Montpellier 34095, France

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  80. Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 312 Eberhart Building, Greensboro, North Carolina 27403, USA

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  81. Department of Biology, 3314 Spieth Hall, University of California — Riverside, Riverside, California 92521, USA

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  82. ETH Zurich, Institute of Integrative Biology (IBZ), Universitätsstrasse 16, CH.8092 Zürich, Switzerland

    • Paul Schmid-Hempel

  83. School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, UK

    • Tom Scott-Phillips

  84. School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Harold Mitchell Building, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9TH, UK

    • David M. Shuker

  85. William Paterson University of New Jersey, 300 Pompton Road, Wayne, New Jersey 07470, USA

    • Joseph C. Spagna

  86. Department of Anthropology, 101 West Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA

    • Beverly Strassmann

  87. Department of Entomology and Department of Animal Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA

    • Andrew V. Suarez

  88. Behavioural Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Wohlenstrasse 50a, CH-3032 Hinterkappelen, Switzerland

    • Michael Taborsky

  89. Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street North, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada

    • Graham Thompson

  90. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-3210, USA

    • John Tooby

  91. Deptartment of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, 130 Mulford Hall, 3114, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-3114, USA

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  92. Faculty of Agriculture, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa 903-0213, Japan

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  93. Dipartimento di Biologia Evoluzionistica, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via Romana 17, 50125 Firenze, Italy

    • Stefano Turillazzi

  94. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902, USA

    • Francisco Úbeda

  95. Department of Entomology, Box 7613, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7613, USA

    • Edward L. Vargo

  96. Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt University zu Berlin, Invalidenstr. 43, D-10115 Germany

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  97. Departmet of Biology, Zoological Institute, K.U. Leuven, Naamsestraat 59, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium

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  98. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Panamá

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  99. Department of Biology, 101 Morgan Building, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0225, USA

    • David F. Westneat

  100. Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street North, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada

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  101. Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

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  102. Department of Biology and Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA

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    •  & Jeanne A. Zeh

  103. Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California 94132, USA

    • Andrew Zink

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the planning, writing and/or revising of this paper. Several others who contributed significantly are not listed because they are named on separate comments.

Competing interests

Competing financial interests: declared none.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stuart A. West.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09831

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