Kin selection
(a) Kin selection is another way of saying that it pays to help those to whom we are most closely related
(b) Why?
(i) Individuals with which an individual is closely related share genes includinggenes that code for cooperative behaviour.
(ii) Increasing the Darwinian fitness of relatives therefore can serve to increase the
Darwinian fitness associated with cooperative behavior.
(c) Note that key to kin selection is the ability to distinguish non-relatives from relatives, either by recognition of some kind or via correlates such as when relatively non-mobile individuals tend to be more closely related to individuals who are near to them than they are to individuals who are a greater distance from them.
(d) Kin selection essentially is cooperative behavior among kin (relatives) resulting in
greater Darwinian fitness for these relatives in comparison to groups that do not
mutually cooperate; the basis of kin selection is that relatives share genes and therefore that enhancing the fitness of a relative to some degree is equivalent to enhancing ones own Darwinian fitness (and, in particular, it enhances the inclusive fitness associated with ones genes/alleles).
(e) The most obvious form of kin selection is the caring of offspring by parents, i.e., it
pays for parents to care for their offspring because their offspring share genes with
them (that is, any allele that coded for not caring for otherwise helpless offspring
would quickly go extinct).
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