Evolutionary transitions in individuality are central to the emergence of biological complexity. Recent experiments provide glimpses of processes underpinning the transition from single cells to multicellular life and draw attention to the critical role of ecology. Here we emphasise this ecological dimension and argue that its current absence from theoretical frameworks hampers development of general explanatory solutions. Using mechanistic mathematical models, we show how a minimal ecological structure comprised of patchily distributed resources and between patch dispersal can scaffold Darwinian-like properties on collectives of cells. This scaffolding causes cells to participate directly in the process of evolution by natural selection as if they were members of multicellular collectives, with collectives participating in a death-birth process arising from the interplay between the timing of dispersal events and the rate of resource utilisation by cells. When this timescale is sufficiently long and new collectives are founded by single cells, collectives experience conditions that favour evolution of a reproductive division of labour. Together our simple model makes explicit key events in the major evolutionary transition to multicellularity. It also makes predictions concerning the life history of certain pathogens and serves as an ecological recipe for experimental realisation of evolutionary transitions..
In this paper, I identify two major problems with the model of evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs) developed by Michod and colleagues, and extended by Okasha, commonly referred to as the "export-of-fitness view". First, it applies the concepts of viability and fertility inconsistently across levels of selection. This leads Michod to claim that once an ETI is complete, lower-level entities composing higher-level individuals have nil fitness. I argue that this claim is mistaken, propose a correct way to translate the concepts of viability and fertility from one level to the other and show that once an ETI is complete, neither viability nor fertility of the lower level entities is nil. Second, the exportof-fitness view does not sufficiently take the parameter of time into account when estimating fitness across levels of selection. As a result fitness is measured over different periods of time at each level. This ultimately means that fitness is measured in different environmental conditions at each level and misleads Okasha into making the claim that the two levels are ontologically distinct levels of selection. I show that once fitness is measured over the same period of time across levels, the claim about two levels of selection can only be an epistemic one.
Humans pay close attention to the reputational consequences of their actions. Recent experiments indicate that even very subtle cues that one is being observed can affect cooperative behaviors. Expressing our opinions about the morality of certain acts is a key means of advertising our cooperative dispositions. Here, we investigated how subtle cues of being watched would affect moral judgments. We predicted that participants exposed to such cues would affirm their endorsement of prevailing moral norms by expressing greater disapproval of moral transgressions. Participants read brief accounts of two moral violations and rated the moral acceptability of each violation. Violations were more strongly condemned in a condition where participants were exposed to surveillance cues (an image of eyes interposed between the description of the violation and the associated rating scale) than in a control condition (in which the interposed image was of flowers). We discuss the role that public declarations play in the interpersonal evaluation of cooperative dispositions.
In this paper I argue against the claim, recently put forward by some philosophers of biology and evolutionary biologists, that there can be two or more ontologically distinct levels of selection. I show by comparing the fitness of individuals with that of collectives of individuals in the same environment and over the same period of time -as required to decide if one or more levels of selection is acting in a population -that the selection of collectives is a by-product of selection at the individual level; thus, talking about two or more levels of selection represents merely a different perspective on one and the same process.
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