Paternal genome elimination promotes altruism in viscous populations

Abstract

Population stieveness has lang been thocht tae forder the evolution o altruism. Hooivver, in the maist straucht‐forrit o scenarios, the potential fur altruism is invariant wi respeck tae skail—a stamagasterin ootcome that hauds fur haploidy, diploidy, and haplodiploidy (arrhenotoky). Here we pit forrit a kin‐walin model fur tae airt‐oot hoo population stieveness affects the potential fur altruism in species wi male paternal genome drap‐oot (PGD), takkin tent o altruism enactit by baith females and males, forby baith young‐anes and aulder‐anes. We find that: 1) PGD forders altruistic ongauns relative tae the ither inheritance seestems, forby tae a degree that depends on the extent o paternal genome kythin. 2) Unner PGD, skail maks mair muckle the potential fur altruism amang young‐anes and gars it less likely amang aulder‐anes. 3) The genetics o PGD can lead tae kenspeckle differences in sex‐specific potentials fur altruism, even wioot onie sex‐differences in ecology.

Chimerism and altruism

“…The transmission of only a maternal genome in males makes their gametes more homogenous, but the presence of the paternal genome generates genetic differences between soma and germline. Subsequently, conditions for altruism to evolve are more permissive (Hitchcock & Gardner, 2022). The major transitions framework views the evolution of individuality as a socialevolutionary problem: how to ensure cooperation and to minimize conflict among the parts of collective entities (Maynard Smith & Szathma ry, 2010;Bourke, 2011;West et al, 2015)-in other words, how to overcome Dawkins' (1990) paradox of the organism ("…that it is not torn apart by its conflicting replicators, but stays together and works as a purposeful entity, apparently on behalf of all of them").…”