Genetic hitchhiking can promote the initial spread of strong altruism.

doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-281

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Article

Genetic hitchhiking can promote the initial spread of strong altruism.

BMC evolutionary biology - 10 Oct 2008

Santos Mauro, Szathmáry Eörs

Abstract excerpt

BACKGROUND: The evolutionary origin of strong altruism (where the altruist pays an absolute cost in terms of fitness) towards non-kin has never been satisfactorily explained since no mechanism (except genetic drift) seems to be able to overcome the fitness disadvantage of the individual who practiced altruism in the first place. RESULTS: Here we consider a multilocus, single-generation random group model and...

Topics

Alleles
Altruism
Biological Evolution
Computer Simulation
Genetic Variation
Genetics, Population
Haplotypes
Models, Genetic
Selection, Genetic

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Identifiers

PMID: 18847475
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-8-281
PMCID: PMC2580771

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