Dear all, The new CamPoS (Cambridge Philosophy of Science) seminar series continues this Wednesday, 7 November, 1-2:30pm in HPS Seminar Room 2. Jonathan Birch (HPS, Cambridge), will give a talk entitled "Altruism and relatedness in microbial populations". The abstract is below.
All are very welcome, and we hope to see many of you there. Best wishes, Vashka -- Most theories of the evolution of altruism are built with multicellular animals in mind. What happens when we apply these theories to the evolution of altruism in the microbial world? In particular, what happens to the relationship between altruism and genetic relatedness, given the propensity of microbes to trade genes 'horizontally' with one another? I use simple models to address these questions. I argue that gene mobility makes the evolution of altruism more likely than it otherwise would be. I also show how the very concept of 'genetic relatedness' is transformed by a recognition of the importance of gene mobility. In the microbial world, relatedness is gene-relative, it changes during the life cycle, and it probably co-evolves with the altruism it sustains. _____________________________________________________ Sent by the CamPhilEvents mailing list. To unsubscribe or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents Posts are archived here: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
