Green-beard effect

Last updated

The green-beard effect is a form of selection in which individuals with genes that produce unique observable traits select individuals with the specific trait and thereby the same gene. In this illustration individuals selectively mate with individuals of the same head color. Green Beard Effect.svg
The green-beard effect is a form of selection in which individuals with genes that produce unique observable traits select individuals with the specific trait and thereby the same gene. In this illustration individuals selectively mate with individuals of the same head color.

The green-beard effect is a thought experiment used in evolutionary biology to explain selective altruism among individuals of a species.

Contents

History

The idea of a green-beard gene was proposed by William D. Hamilton in his articles of 1964, [1] [2] and got the name from the example used by Richard Dawkins ("I have a green beard and I will be altruistic to anyone else with green beard") in The Selfish Gene (1976). [3] [4]

Description

A green-beard effect occurs when an allele, or a set of linked alleles, produce three expressed (or phenotypic) effects:

The carrier of the gene (or a specific allele) is essentially recognizing copies of the same gene (or a specific allele) in other individuals. Whereas kin selection involves altruism to related individuals who share genes in a non-specific way, green-beard alleles promote altruism toward individuals who share a gene that is expressed by a specific phenotypic trait. Some authors also note that the green-beard effects can include "spite" for individuals lacking the "green-beard" gene. [5] This can have the effect of delineating a subset of organisms within a population that is characterized by members who show greater cooperation toward each other, this forming a "clique" that can be advantageous to its members who are not necessarily kin. [6]

Green-beard effect could increase altruism on green-beard phenotypes and therefore its presence in a population even if genes assist in the increase of genes that are not exact copies; all that is required is that they express the three required characteristics. Green-beard alleles are vulnerable to mutations that produce the perceptible trait without the helping behaviour.

Role in evolutionary theory

Altruistic behaviour is paradoxical when viewed in the light of old ideas of evolutionary theory that emphasised the role of competition. The evolution of altruism is better explained through the gene-centered view of evolution, which emphasizes an interpretation of natural selection from the point of view of the gene which acts as an agent that has the metaphorical "selfish goal" of maximizing its own propagation. A gene for (behavioral) selective altruism can be favored by (natural) selection if the altruism is primarily directed at other individuals who share the gene. Since genes are invisible, such an effect requires perceptible markers for altruistic behaviour to occur.

Examples

Evolutionary biologists have debated the potential validity of green-beard genes, suggesting that it would be extraordinarily rare for a single or even a set of linked genes to produce three complex phenotypic effects. This criticism has led some to believe that they simply cannot exist or that they only can be present in less complex organisms, such as microorganisms. This critique has been called into question in recent years.

The concept remained a merely theoretical possibility under Dawkins' selfish gene model until 1998, when a green-beard allele was first found in nature by Laurent Keller and Kenneth G. Ross in the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta). [4] [7] Polygyne colony queens are heterozygous (Bb) at the Gp-9 gene locus. Their worker offspring can have both heterozygous (Bb) and homozygous (BB) genotypes. The investigators discovered that homozygous dominant (BB) queens, which in the wild form produce monogyne rather than polygyne colonies, are specifically killed when introduced into polygyne colonies, most often by heterozygous (Bb) and not homozygous (BB) workers. They concluded that the allele Gp-9b is linked to a greenbeard allele which induces workers bearing this allele to kill all queens that do not have it. A final conclusion notes that the workers are able to distinguish BB queens from Bb queens based on an odor cue. [7]

The gene csA in the slime mould Dictyostelium discoideum , discovered in 2003, [8] codes for a cell adhesion protein which binds to gp80 proteins on other cells, allowing multicellular fruiting body formation on soil. Mixtures of csA knockout cells with wild-type cells yield spores, "born" from the fruiting bodies, which are 82% wild-type (WT). This is because the wild-type cells are better at adhering and more effectively combine into aggregates; knockout (KO) cells are left behind. On more adhesive but less natural substances, KO cells can adhere; WT cells, still better at adhering, sort preferentially into the stalk. [8]

In 2006, green beard-like recognition was seen in the cooperative behavior among color morphs in side-blotched lizards, although the traits appear to be encoded by multiple loci across the genome. [9]

A more recent example, found in 2008, is a gene that makes brewer's yeast clump together in response to a toxin such as alcohol. [10] By investigating flocculation, a type of self-adherence generally present in asexual aggregations, Smukalla et al. showed that S. cerevisiae is a model for cooperative behavior evolution. When this yeast expresses FLO1 in the laboratory, flocculation is restored. Flocculation is apparently protective for the FLO1+ cells, which are shielded from certain stresses (ethanol, for example). In addition FLO1+ cells preferentially adhere to each other. The authors therefore conclude that flocculation is driven by this greenbeard allele. [11]

A mammalian example appears to be the reproductive strategy of the wood mouse, which shows cooperation among spermatozoa. Single sperms hook in each other to form sperm-trains, which are able to move faster together than single sperm would do. [12]

It has been suggested that speciation could be possible through the manifestation of a green-beard effect. [13]

Additionally, it has been suggested that suicide could have evolved through green beard selection. [14] Suicide is often a reaction to an undesirable social context. Attempting suicide imposes a threat of bereavement on community members. If bereavement from many previous suicides has been felt, then the community is likely to take a new suicide attempter seriously. Accordingly, previous suicides may increase the credibility of future suicide attempts, resulting in increased effort from the community to alleviate the undesirable social context.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altruism</span> Principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others

Altruism is the principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans or animals above oneself. While objects of altruistic concern vary, it is an important moral value in many cultures and religions. It may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of selfishness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heredity</span> Passing of traits to offspring from the species parents or ancestor

Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents. Through heredity, variations between individuals can accumulate and cause species to evolve by natural selection. The study of heredity in biology is genetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mendelian inheritance</span> Type of biological inheritance

Mendelian inheritance is a type of biological inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and later popularized by William Bateson. These principles were initially controversial. When Mendel's theories were integrated with the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory of inheritance by Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1915, they became the core of classical genetics. Ronald Fisher combined these ideas with the theory of natural selection in his 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, putting evolution onto a mathematical footing and forming the basis for population genetics within the modern evolutionary synthesis.

Selfish genetic elements are genetic segments that can enhance their own transmission at the expense of other genes in the genome, even if this has no positive or a net negative effect on organismal fitness. Genomes have traditionally been viewed as cohesive units, with genes acting together to improve the fitness of the organism. However, when genes have some control over their own transmission, the rules can change, and so just like all social groups, genomes are vulnerable to selfish behaviour by their parts.

Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning. Genetic reductionism is a similar concept, but it is distinct from genetic determinism in that the former refers to the level of understanding, while the latter refers to the supposedly causal role of genes. Biological determinism has been associated with movements in science and society including eugenics, scientific racism, and the debates around the heritability of IQ, the basis of sexual orientation, and sociobiology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kin selection</span> Evolutionary strategy favoring relatives

Kin selection is a process whereby natural selection favours a trait due to its positive effects on the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even when at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin selection can lead to the evolution of altruistic behaviour. Kin selection is related to the concept of inclusive fitness, which combines the number of offspring produced with the number an individual can ensure the production of by supporting others. A broader definition of kin selection includes selection acting on interactions between individuals who share a gene of interest even if the gene is not shared due to common ancestry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominance (genetics)</span> One gene variant masking the effect of another in the other copy of the gene

In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant (allele) of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and the second is called recessive. This state of having two different variants of the same gene on each chromosome is originally caused by a mutation in one of the genes, either new or inherited. The terms autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive are used to describe gene variants on non-sex chromosomes (autosomes) and their associated traits, while those on sex chromosomes (allosomes) are termed X-linked dominant, X-linked recessive or Y-linked; these have an inheritance and presentation pattern that depends on the sex of both the parent and the child. Since there is only one copy of the Y chromosome, Y-linked traits cannot be dominant or recessive. Additionally, there are other forms of dominance, such as incomplete dominance, in which a gene variant has a partial effect compared to when it is present on both chromosomes, and co-dominance, in which different variants on each chromosome both show their associated traits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Group selection</span> Proposed mechanism of evolution

Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punnett square</span> Tabular summary of genetic combinations

The Punnett square is a square diagram that is used to predict the genotypes of a particular cross or breeding experiment. It is named after Reginald C. Punnett, who devised the approach in 1905. The diagram is used by biologists to determine the probability of an offspring having a particular genotype. The Punnett square is a tabular summary of possible combinations of maternal alleles with paternal alleles. These tables can be used to examine the genotypical outcome probabilities of the offspring of a single trait (allele), or when crossing multiple traits from the parents. The Punnett square is a visual representation of Mendelian inheritance. For multiple traits, using the "forked-line method" is typically much easier than the Punnett square. Phenotypes may be predicted with at least better-than-chance accuracy using a Punnett square, but the phenotype that may appear in the presence of a given genotype can in some instances be influenced by many other factors, as when polygenic inheritance and/or epigenetics are at work.

In evolutionary biology, inclusive fitness is one of two metrics of evolutionary success as defined by W. D. Hamilton in 1964:

Evolutionary game theory (EGT) is the application of game theory to evolving populations in biology. It defines a framework of contests, strategies, and analytics into which Darwinian competition can be modelled. It originated in 1973 with John Maynard Smith and George R. Price's formalisation of contests, analysed as strategies, and the mathematical criteria that can be used to predict the results of competing strategies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Non-Mendelian inheritance</span> Type of pattern of inheritance

Non-Mendelian inheritance is any pattern in which traits do not segregate in accordance with Mendel's laws. These laws describe the inheritance of traits linked to single genes on chromosomes in the nucleus. In Mendelian inheritance, each parent contributes one of two possible alleles for a trait. If the genotypes of both parents in a genetic cross are known, Mendel's laws can be used to determine the distribution of phenotypes expected for the population of offspring. There are several situations in which the proportions of phenotypes observed in the progeny do not match the predicted values.

The gene-centered view of evolution, gene's eye view, gene selection theory, or selfish gene theory holds that adaptive evolution occurs through the differential survival of competing genes, increasing the allele frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic trait effects successfully promote their own propagation. The proponents of this viewpoint argue that, since heritable information is passed from generation to generation almost exclusively by DNA, natural selection and evolution are best considered from the perspective of genes.

In biology, altruism refers to behaviour by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing their own. Altruism in this sense is different from the philosophical concept of altruism, in which an action would only be called "altruistic" if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. In the behavioural sense, there is no such requirement. As such, it is not evaluated in moral terms—it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action is considered altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed.

Intragenomic conflict refers to the evolutionary phenomenon where genes have phenotypic effects that promote their own transmission in detriment of the transmission of other genes that reside in the same genome. The selfish gene theory postulates that natural selection will increase the frequency of those genes whose phenotypic effects cause their transmission to new organisms, and most genes achieve this by cooperating with other genes in the same genome to build an organism capable of reproducing and/or helping kin to reproduce. The assumption of the prevalence of intragenomic cooperation underlies the organism-centered concept of inclusive fitness. However, conflict among genes in the same genome may arise both in events related to reproduction and altruism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haplodiploidy</span> Biological system where sex is determined by the number of sets of chromosomes

Haplodiploidy is a sex-determination system in which males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid, and females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid. Haplodiploidy is sometimes called arrhenotoky.

In evolution, cooperation is the process where groups of organisms work or act together for common or mutual benefits. It is commonly defined as any adaptation that has evolved, at least in part, to increase the reproductive success of the actor's social partners. For example, territorial choruses by male lions discourage intruders and are likely to benefit all contributors.

Mitotic recombination is a type of genetic recombination that may occur in somatic cells during their preparation for mitosis in both sexual and asexual organisms. In asexual organisms, the study of mitotic recombination is one way to understand genetic linkage because it is the only source of recombination within an individual. Additionally, mitotic recombination can result in the expression of recessive alleles in an otherwise heterozygous individual. This expression has important implications for the study of tumorigenesis and lethal recessive alleles. Mitotic homologous recombination occurs mainly between sister chromatids subsequent to replication. Inter-sister homologous recombination is ordinarily genetically silent. During mitosis the incidence of recombination between non-sister homologous chromatids is only about 1% of that between sister chromatids.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evolution of color vision in primates</span> Loss and regain of colour vision during the evolution of primates

The evolution of color vision in primates is highly unusual compared to most eutherian mammals. A remote vertebrate ancestor of primates possessed tetrachromacy, but nocturnal, warm-blooded, mammalian ancestors lost two of four cones in the retina at the time of dinosaurs. Most teleost fish, reptiles and birds are therefore tetrachromatic while most mammals are strictly dichromats, the exceptions being some primates and marsupials, who are trichromats, and many marine mammals, who are monochromats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zygosity</span> Degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism

Zygosity is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism.

References

  1. Hamilton, W. D. (July 1964). "The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 7 (1): 1–16. Bibcode:1964JThBi...7....1H. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(64)90038-4. PMID   5875341.
  2. Hamilton, W. D. (July 1964). "The genetical evolution of social behaviour. II". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 7 (1): 17–52. Bibcode:1964JThBi...7...17H. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(64)90039-6. PMID   5875340.
  3. Dawkins, Richard (1976). The Selfish Gene . Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-217773-5.
  4. 1 2 Grafen, Alan (6 August 1998). "Green beard as death warrant" (PDF). Nature . 394 (6693): 521–522. doi: 10.1038/28948 . S2CID   28124873 . Retrieved 29 November 2009.
  5. West, Stuart A.; Gardner, Andy (2010). "Altruism, Spite, and Greenbeards" (PDF). Science. 327 (5971): 1341–1344. Bibcode:2010Sci...327.1341W. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.387.4191 . doi:10.1126/science.1178332. PMID   20223978. S2CID   6334417. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 March 2017. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  6. Gardner, Andy; West, Stuart A. (2010). "Greenbeards". Evolution. 64 (1): 25–38. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00842.x. PMID   19780812. S2CID   221733134. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  7. 1 2 Keller, Laurent; Ross, Kenneth G (6 August 1998). "Selfish genes: a green beard in the red fire ant". Nature . 394 (6693): 573–575. Bibcode:1998Natur.394..573K. doi:10.1038/29064. S2CID   4310467.
  8. 1 2 Queller, David C; Ponte, Eleonora; Bozzaro, Salvatore; Strassmann, Joan E (3 January 2003). "Single-gene greenbeard effects in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum" (PDF). Science . 299 (5603): 105–106. Bibcode:2003Sci...299..105Q. doi:10.1126/science.1077742. PMID   12511650. S2CID   30039249. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 June 2010. Retrieved 29 November 2009.
  9. Sinervo B, Chaine A, Clobert J, Calsbeek R, Hazard L, Lancaster L, McAdam AG, Alonzo S, Corrigan G, Hochberg ME (May 2006). "Self-recognition, color signals, and cycles of greenbeard mutualism and altruism". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 103 (19): 7372–7377. Bibcode:2006PNAS..103.7372S. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0510260103 . PMC   1564281 . PMID   16651531.
  10. Prakash, Sheila (18 December 2008). "Yeast Gone Wild". Seed . Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 29 November 2009.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  11. Smukalla, Scott; Caldara, Marina; Pochet, Nathalie; Beauvais, A; Guadagnini, S; Yan, C; Vinces, MD; Jansen, A; Prevost, MC (14 November 2008). "FLO1 is a variable green beard gene that drives biofilm-like cooperation in budding yeast". Cell . 135 (4): 726–737. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2008.09.037. PMC   2703716 . PMID   19013280.
  12. Harry Moore, Katerina Dvoráková, Nicholas Jenkins, William Breed (1 March 2002), "Exceptional sperm cooperation in the wood mouse", Nature 418, 174-177, doi:10.1038/nature00832;
  13. Hochberg, Michael E.; Sinervo, Barry; Brown, Sam P. (2003). "Socially mediated speciation" (PDF). Evolution. 57 (1): 154–158. doi:10.1554/0014-3820(2003)057[0154:SMS]2.0.CO;2. PMID   12643576. S2CID   33006210. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  14. Wiley, James C. (25 May 2020). "Psychological Aposematism: An Evolutionary Analysis of Suicide". Biological Theory. 15 (4): 226–238. doi: 10.1007/s13752-020-00353-8 . ISSN   1555-5550.

Further reading