Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2013

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Major Professor

Sergey Gavrilets

Committee Members

Susan E. Riechert, Gordon M. Burghardt, Brian C. O'Meara

Abstract

A productive framework to study phenotypic evolution is based on the notion of ``inclusive fitness'', which considers how an individual's phenotype affects the fitness of other individuals. A promising extension of the notion of inclusive fitness is that of the ``extended phenotype'', which considers how an individual's phenotype affects its environment, including the phenotype of other individuals. Affecting another individual's phenotype is sometimes referred to as manipulation (which introduces indirect genetic effects). However, manipulated individuals may evolve resistance to manipulation, possibly reducing or eliminating the manipulated behavior (and the indirect genetic effects). In this dissertation I use mathematical modeling to identify different ways in which acquiescence (i.e., no resistance) to manipulation evolves. In Chapter 1, I show how costs of resistance may cause the evolution of acquiescence. In Chapter 2, I find that manipulation may cause the evolution of social efficiency, which can eliminate selection for resistance. In Chapter 3, I obtain that manipulation causes the evolution of maternal exploitation, which can also eliminate selection for resistance. In Appendices I-III, I present population genetics models of maternal manipulation that prompted the general models of chapters 1-3. Together, the results presented in this dissertation suggest that manipulation may be a particularly powerful promoter of stable social behavior.

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