We were all young once: an intragenomic perspective on parent–offspring conflict

Bossan, Benjamin; Hammerstein, Peter; Koehncke, Arnulf

doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.2637

Cited by 23 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Despite lingering problems with the term 'fitness' and the limitations of inclusive fitness in some contexts relative to direct fitness approaches [67][68][69][70][71][72], Hamiltonian inclusive fitness is a fitter fitness concept as judged by the number and diversity of 'offspring ideas' it has engendered. It certainly would have intrigued and delighted Darwin for the abundance of light it has shed on the weird and wonderful adaptations of organisms that he and Hamilton, naturalists both, so deeply appreciated.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hamiltonian inclusive fitness: a fitter fitness concept

Costa

2013

Biol. Lett.

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In 1963-1964 W. D. Hamilton introduced the concept of inclusive fitness, the only significant elaboration of Darwinian fitness since the nineteenth century. I discuss the origin of the modern fitness concept, providing context for Hamilton's discovery of inclusive fitness in relation to the puzzle of altruism. While fitness conceptually originates with Darwin, the term itself stems from Spencer and crystallized quantitatively in the early twentieth century. Hamiltonian inclusive fitness, with Price's reformulation, provided the solution to Darwin's 'special difficulty'-the evolution of caste polymorphism and sterility in social insects. Hamilton further explored the roles of inclusive fitness and reciprocation to tackle Darwin's other difficulty, the evolution of human altruism. The heuristically powerful inclusive fitness concept ramified over the past 50 years: the number and diversity of 'offspring ideas' that it has engendered render it a fitter fitness concept, one that Darwin would have appreciated.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hamiltonian inclusive fitness: a fitter fitness concept

Costa

2013

Biol. Lett.

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“…Such a transition requires the mother to allocate fewer resources to each individual offspring. However, alleles expressed by offspring (particularly paternal-derived alleles) should continue to demand greater investment from the mother, thereby increasing offspring quality at the expense of offspring quantity (25,26). As a result, ceteris paribus, we would expect high environmentally driven mortality to elevate maternal-fetal conflict over provisioning, given that parent-offspring conflict is expected to be stronger in species with a high average number of offspring (25).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, alleles expressed by offspring (particularly paternal-derived alleles) should continue to demand greater investment from the mother, thereby increasing offspring quality at the expense of offspring quantity (25,26). As a result, ceteris paribus, we would expect high environmentally driven mortality to elevate maternal-fetal conflict over provisioning, given that parent-offspring conflict is expected to be stronger in species with a high average number of offspring (25). The evolution of an epitheliochorial placenta, which separates the fetus from maternal blood, may result from more intense selection on mothers to limit offspring from taking more resources than they are optimally selected to provide.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversification of the eutherian placenta is associated with changes in the pace of life

Garratt

Gaillard

Brooks

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Few mammalian organs vary as dramatically among species as the placenta. This variation is remarkable considering that the placenta's primary function-transfer of nutrients and waste between mother and offspring-does not differ among species. Evolutionary changes in placental morphology remain poorly understood, with suggestions that parent-offspring conflict or evolutionary changes in life history might drive placental evolution. Here we demonstrate that life history differences among eutherian mammals are associated with major transitions in maternofetal interdigitation and placental invasiveness. We show that the repeated evolution of villous interdigitation is associated with reduced offspring production early in life and an increased lifespan. Further changes in placental morphology that reestablish a larger surface area are also associated with a change back to greater offspring production. After controlling for these differences in interdigitation, we also show that the least invasive placental type is associated with a fast pace of life. We predict that selection for a faster pace of life intensifies parent-offspring conflict, and that the repeated evolution of less-invasive placental structures might have allowed mothers to wrest back control of gestation from the fetus and alter their relative allocation to offspring production across life.aging | senescence | reproduction | placentation

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“…We next looked at whether variation in within-brood relatedness due to promiscuity also impacts offspring honesty (3)(4)(5)(6)(18)(19)(20). We used the percentage of broods with at least one extrapair offspring as our measure of promiscuity.…”

Section: Full Siblings Expectedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sibling conflict and dishonest signaling in birds

Shana

West

Griffin

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Offspring survival can often depend on successful communication with parents about their state of need. Theory suggests that offspring will be less likely to honestly signal their need when they experience greater competition from either a greater number of nestmates or less-related nestmates. We found support for this hypothesis with a comparative analysis, examining data from across 60 species of birds. We found that offspring are less honest about their level of need when (i) they face competition from current siblings; (ii) their parents are likely to breed again, and so they are in competition with future siblings; and (iii) parental divorce or death means that they are likely to be less related to future siblings. More generally, these patterns highlight the sensitivity of communication systems to conflict between signaler and receiver while also suggesting that when there is little conflict, natural selection favors the honest.

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We were all young once: an intragenomic perspective on parent–offspring conflict

Cited by 23 publications

References 22 publications

Hamiltonian inclusive fitness: a fitter fitness concept

Hamiltonian inclusive fitness: a fitter fitness concept

Diversification of the eutherian placenta is associated with changes in the pace of life

Sibling conflict and dishonest signaling in birds

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