Group and individual selection during evolutionary transitions in individuality: meanings and partitions. (9th March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shelton, Deborah E.; Michod, Richard E.
• Is Part Of: Philosophical transactions. Volume 375:Number 1797(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-03-09
• Subjects: contextual analysis -- evolutionary transitions in individuality -- multi-level selection -- Price equation -- spurious correlation -- volvocine algae; Biology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals; 570
• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0364
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0962-8436

Abstract

Abstract : The Price equation embodies the 'conditions approach' to evolution in which the Darwinian conditions of heritable variation in fitness are represented in equation form. The equation can be applied recursively, leading to a partition of selection at the group and individual levels. After reviewing the well-known issues with the Price partition, as well as issues with a partition based on contextual analysis, we summarize a partition of group and individual selection based on counterfactual fitness, the fitness that grouped cells would have were they solitary. To understand 'group selection' in multi-level selection models, we assume that only group selection can make cells suboptimal when they are removed from the group. Our analyses suggest that there are at least three kinds of selection that can be occurring at the same time: group-specific selection along with two kinds of individual selection, within-group selection and global individual selection. Analyses based on counterfactual fitness allow us to specify how close a group is to being a pseudo-group, and this can be a basis for quantifying progression through an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI). During an ETI, fitnesses at the two levels, group and individual, become decoupled, in the sense that fitness in a group may be quite high, even as counterfactual fitness goes to zero. This article is part of the theme issue 'Fifty years of the Price equation'.