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"ALTRUISM can evolve when relatedness is low: evidence from bacteria committing suicide upon phage infection. High relatedness among interacting individuals has generally been considered a precondition for the evolution of altruism. However, kin-selection theory also predicts the evolution of altruism when relatedness is low, as long as the cost of the altruistic act is minor compared with its benefit." https://lnkd.in/d53-z28 View in LinkedIn

VIRTUAL EVOLUTION. "Rather than remove an erroneous selection, evolution would just add a countercorrecting solution, or reroute the main event around the bad sector. The final formula had the appearance of being some miraculous Rube Goldberg collection of items that by some happy accident worked." https://lnkd.in/d3G_hCh View in LinkedIn

VALIDATION. "But the host will benefit from suicide, if by its death (and that of its parasite) the level of subsequent parasitism in its kin is reduced relative to that in non-kin. Here we report that pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) parasitized by the braconid wasp Aphidius ervi, exhibit apparent suicidal behaviour in response to both aphid alarm pheromone and approaching coccinellid (ladybird beetle) predators. We believe this to be the first convincing evidence in support of the host suicide hypothesis." https://lnkd.in/dnVKjrQ View in LinkedIn

SEX AND EFFICIENCY. "Evolutionary theory predicts that natural selection should be less efficient in asexually than in sexually reproducing organisms. Obligate asexuals are expected to adapt slowly to changing environments and to accumulate mildly deleterious mutations to their genomes, potentially explaining their typically short evolutionary lifespans." https://lnkd.in/dgGXaM6 View in LinkedIn

APHID ADAPTIVE SUICIDE. "The host suicide hypothesis, which derives from inclusive fitness theory, postulates that parasitized individuals in spatially aggregated populations consisting of close kin may actively enhance their probability of dying. The fitness cost associated with suicide becomes negligible when infection by a parasitoid causes the expected reproduction of the host to approach zero." https://lnkd.in/dnVKjrQ View in LinkedIn

INCREASED HOST FITNESS. "Host suicide will increase the inclusive fitness of the host if (1) the suicide prevents the maturation of the parasite; (2) the mature parasite is more likely to infect the host's kin than nonkin; and (3) the benefit to the host, in terms of the increased fitness of the kin, is greater than the cost of the suicide, measured in terms of the loss of the host's own reproductive fitness." https://lnkd.in/dzrwDbd View in LinkedIn

"HOST SUICIDE is the term coined to describe aberrant behavior on the part of an infected host which leads to increased probability of death by predation." https://lnkd.in/dzrwDbd View in LinkedIn

CO-EVOLUTION OF PARASITE AND HOST. "The arms race between pathogens and hosts is a major force in evolution that is likely to have played key roles in the origins of multicellularity and sexual reproduction, among other biological phenomena." https://lnkd.in/d9zsv9R View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE considers the phenomenon of host suicide, the sacrifice of individuals for the betterment of the population. This is not rare in biology and has been quite well studied. The function of host suicide is to thwart the reproductive strategy of the parasite. And curiously, some viral parasites have evolved cunning strategies of preventing host cell death. View in LinkedIn

DIGITAL WORM. "Scientists digitize the brain of a worm and place it inside a robot." https://lnkd.in/dehvuZe View in LinkedIn