Only full-sibling families evolved eusociality

Boomsma, Jacobus J.; Beekman, Madeleine; Cornwallis, Charlie K.; Griffin, Ashleigh S.; Holman, Luke; Hughes, William O.H.; Keller, Laurent; Oldroyd, Benjamin P.; Ratnieks, Francis L.W.

Abstract

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

The paper by Nowak et al.1 has the evolution of eusociality as its title, but it is mostly about something else. It argues against inclusive fitness theory and offers an alternative modelling approach that is claimed to be more fundamental and general, but which, we believe, has no practical biological meaning for the evolution of eusociality. Nowak et al.1 overlook the robust empirical observation that eusociality has only arisen in clades where mothers are associated with their full-sibling offspring; that is, in families where the average relatedness of offspring to siblings is as high as to their own offspring, independent of population structure or ploidy. We believe that this omission makes the paper largely irrelevant for understanding the evolution of eusociality.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 17, 2010
• Online Publication Date: Mar 23, 2011
• Publication Date: Mar 24, 2011
• Deposit Date: Mar 19, 2021
• Journal: Nature
• Print ISSN: 0028-0836
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 471
• Pages: E4-E5
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09832
• Keywords: Animal behaviour, Social evolution
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2722868