Publication Date:
2010-08-21
Description:
Theory predicts that the evolution of cooperative behaviour is favoured by low levels of promiscuity leading to high within-group relatedness. However, in vertebrates, cooperation often occurs between non-relatives and promiscuity rates are among the highest recorded. Here we resolve this apparent inconsistency with a phylogenetic analysis of 267 bird species, demonstrating that cooperative breeding is associated with low promiscuity; that in cooperative species, helping is more common when promiscuity is low; and that intermediate levels of promiscuity favour kin discrimination. Overall, these results suggest that promiscuity is a unifying feature across taxa in explaining transitions to and from cooperative societies.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Cornwallis, Charlie K -- West, Stuart A -- Davis, Katie E -- Griffin, Ashleigh S -- England -- Nature. 2010 Aug 19;466(7309):969-72. doi: 10.1038/nature09335.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20725039" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Birds/classification/genetics/*physiology
;
*Cooperative Behavior
;
Fathers
;
Female
;
Male
;
Models, Biological
;
Mothers
;
Phylogeny
;
Reproduction/genetics/physiology
;
Sexual Behavior, Animal/*physiology
;
*Siblings
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
