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First grape hyacinth of the spring. View in LinkedIn

ROOTS OF ALTRUISM. “In this article I argue that the origin of altruism leading to eusociality cannot be deduced by aprioristic reasoning based on general models. It can, however, be revealed by reconstructing actual histories with empirical data.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

NOT A CLUE. “The standard cosmological model known as LambdaCDM can only explain 5% of the observable Universe. The remaining 95% is famously made up almost entirely of two invisible components called dark matter and dark energy.” https://lnkd.in/dVx65w5 View in LinkedIn

COLLATERAL ALTRUISM. “Why, then, has eusociality been so rare? The answer is that it requires collateral altruism, which is behavior benefiting others at the cost of the lifetime production of offspring by the altruist. The existence of collateral altruism is one of the perennial problems of evolutionary biology. Given its genetic consequences, how can programmed sacrifices to collaterally related group members arise by natural selection?” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends on a wonderful EO Wilson article about the evolution of eusocial insect societies. Insect societies are far older than human societies and very diverse in structure. How these groups are organized, and what ramifications they have, may shed some light on future human societies, after our initial rather blundering experiments on the subject. View in LinkedIn

REVERSALS. “Evolution in the reverse direction is easily conceivable, and very likely occurred: adaptation to a broader array of food plants set the stage for multiple generations, and thence for overlapping generations in the same nest.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

TRANSITIONS. “Exactly what kind of group selection drives the species across the threshold? Concrete examples of this adaptation and the transition it affords are provided by halictid sweat bees and polistine wasps. In one recently documented case, two species of sweat bees that switched from collecting the pollen of many plant species to collecting pollen from only a few plant species also reverted from a primitively eusocial life to a solitary life.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

WORKER CASTE. “Altruism and eusociality are thus evidently born from the appearance of a phenotypically flexible eusocial allele (or ensemble of such alleles) in a progressively provisioning mother, and from group selection acting on emergent group traits, which are socially binding and sufficiently powerful to overbalance the dissolutive effects of individual direct selection. One small step, so to speak, for a newly created worker caste, one giant leap for the Hymenoptera.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

BROOD TIMING. “Simultaneous progressive provisioning, by which multiple larvae are reared at the same time, is especially potent as a preadaptation in the Hymenoptera. From this wholly solitary adaptation, it is but one short step in evolution for adult offspring to remain at the nest and help their mother raise siblings, instead of dispersing to rear brood of their own. In that generation the eusocial colony originates. Then and thereafter, group selection proceeds, uniquely targeting the emergent traits created by the interaction of the colony members.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

PREADADAPTATION. “The key preadaptation for eusociality in the social Hymenoptera is progressive provisioning, a behavior that in solitary species arises by individual direct selection.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn