Evolutionary Explanations for Cooperation

Natural selection favours genes that increase an organism's ability to survive and reproduce. This would appear to lead to a world dominated by selfish behaviour. However, cooperation can be found at all levels of biological organisation: genes cooperate in genomes, organelles cooperate to form...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inCurrent biology Vol. 17; no. 16; pp. R661 - R672
Main Authors West, Stuart A., Griffin, Ashleigh S., Gardner, Andy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Elsevier Inc 21.08.2007
Subjects
Animals
Biological Evolution
Cell Communication
Cooperative Behavior
Eukaryotic Cells - metabolism
Genes
Humans
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Natural selection favours genes that increase an organism's ability to survive and reproduce. This would appear to lead to a world dominated by selfish behaviour. However, cooperation can be found at all levels of biological organisation: genes cooperate in genomes, organelles cooperate to form eukaryotic cells, cells cooperate to make multicellular organisms, bacterial parasites cooperate to overcome host defences, animals breed cooperatively, and humans and insects cooperate to build societies. Over the last 40 years, biologists have developed a theoretical framework that can explain cooperation at all these levels. Here, we summarise this theory, illustrate how it may be applied to real organisms and discuss future directions.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-2
ObjectType-Feature-3
ObjectType-Review-1
ISSN:0960-9822
1879-0445
DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.004