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Inclusive fitness in evolution

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A Brief Communications Arising to this article was published on 23 March 2011

Abstract

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

For over fifty years, the evolution of social behaviour has been guided by the concept of inclusive fitness as a measure of evolutionary success. Nowak et al.1 argue that inclusive fitness should be abandoned. In so doing, however, they misrepresent the role that inclusive fitness has played in the theory of social evolution by which understanding social behaviour in a variety of disciplines has developed and flourished. By discarding inclusive fitness on the basis of its limitations, they create a conceptual tension which, we argue, is unnecessary, and potentially dangerous for evolutionary biology.

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Figure 1: Fitness landscape and Hamilton’s rule.
Figure 2: Co-evolution of altruism and relatedness.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Ecologie & Evolution, CNRS UMR 7625, Ecole Normale Superieure, 46 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France

    Regis Ferriere

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721, Arizona, USA

    Regis Ferriere & Richard E. Michod

Authors
  1. Regis Ferriere
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  2. Richard E. Michod
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Contributions

R.F. and R.E.M. conceived the study. R.F. analysed the model and prepared the figures. R.F. and R.E.M. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Regis Ferriere.

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Competing financial interests: declared none.

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Ferriere, R., Michod, R. Inclusive fitness in evolution. Nature 471, E6–E8 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09834

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